Returned
by AFspouse
Summary: Piney Winston's daughter was kidnapped 10 years ago. Everyone thinks there is no hope of getting her back, until she's spotted one day, and can finally come home. Rewrite of Returned. JuicexOC
1. Chapter 1

10 years ago, Piney Winston and Mary were happily married with their 16 year old son Opie, and their 14 year old daughter Lacey. The Sons were a small time club, still reeling from the death of their founder,John Teller, even though years had passed. Aside from the 'biker outlaw' thing, they were the picture of a happy family.

Things changed one spring day when Lacey, who every day took the bus home and waited for Opie, who was spending his after school hours working at Teller-Morrow, Piney or Mary to get there, wasn't there. The bus driver confirmed dropping her at the end of the block, but there was no sign of her ever being in the house. It was if she had just vanished.

The media latched onto the story almost immediately, and the FBI was called in. The story of the pretty sandy haired girl disappearing was media gold, but produced no leads. The Sons held their own search, going through their, at the time, short list of enemies but came to the conclusion that this had nothing to with Piney being a Son. It was a horrible tragedy, and there was nothing the Sons could do to fix it.

Eventually, Lacey became old news. The media moved on to exploit the next tragedy for profit, the FBI agents left town promising to call with any updates, and Lacey Winston was just another name on the Missing and Exploited Children list.

Opie and Mary's marriage quickly fell apart. She started viewing the Sons as a threat to her already fractured family, and insisted Piney leave the club, or she would leave him. She now believed her daughter to be dead; it was something she had come to peace with.

Piney and Opie never believed it, for years they saw her. The girl in the drugstore, the teenager at the mall, the young woman walking down Main Street, but, it was never her. They didn't talk about her to anyone but each other, not even confiding in Jax or Clay about the emptiness inside them.

Piney still woke up every morning and looked at the picture of his daughter at her eleventh birthday sitting on his nightstand. He still held onto a shred of hope that he would see her. He had no idea how close she really was.

_**TACOMA, WA**_

Celia DuClaw sat behind the counter of her small bridal shop, flipping through a magazine, mentally planning the party at the clubhouse that weekend. As the old lady of the President of SAMTAC it was her responsibility to make sure the patches bellies were full, their beers were cold, and their primal needs were attended to. Her bridal shop was a dream of hers from when she was a little girl, a dream her husband, Gordon, (Gordo to the club) made a reality for her when they had gotten married 20 years ago.

She looked up from her magazine, plastering a smile on her face as the bell above the front door jingled, but faded for a split second when she vaguely recognized the face on the young woman in front of her.

Ten years ago, Sons of Anarchy only had a few charters on the west coast, Tacoma being one of them. Piney Winston would occasionally bring his two kids with him when he'd come visit the Tacoma charter, and his daughter Lacey spent many a day in the bridal store, helping Celia and playing dress up. When Lacey was taken, Celia was almost as devastated as the family when she had heard the news, remembering all the times the little girl would run around the shop with a bouquet in her hands and veil on her head.

The man with her was in his 40s or 50s, the brown hair on his head starting to streak with grey. He had blue eyes, but they weren't bright and lively like Lacey's, they instead looked like two pieces of marble, hard and cold. He was tall, almost 6 and a half feet, and in exquisite shape, judging by the muscles in his arm. Even though he had a smile on his face, Celia shivered inwardly. Something about him set her on edge.

Now, Celia was positive the bright blues eyes staring at her with a plea behind them belonged to Lacey, but judging by the older man gripping Lacey's hand like a vice, she would be wise to not say anything. "How can I help you two?" She asked instead with a smile.

"My fiancée and I are getting married tomorrow, and she would like a dress for the ceremony, something simple." The man told Celia. "She saw the shop on our way into town, and we decided to come here."

Celia turned her attention to the young woman. "Well I'm glad you did, since the big day is tomorrow, we'll have to see what we have in stock." She told her with a smile, putting a hand on her back and leading her to a rack of dresses. She had hoped the man would leave the two alone, but was right next to Lacey the entire time. The girl still hadn't spoken, so Celia decided to do some detective work.

"Are you two from the area?" She asked her, as she pulled dresses off the rack.

The older man answered for them once again. "Oh no, we're from Maine, but my darling here begged to get married on the West Coast, so here we are."

"I grew up on the West Coast." Lacey added quickly, staring into Celia's eyes, but her face giving away nothing.

"Oh that's so nice." Celia told the couple as she reached the end of the rack. "Well let's get these on you." She ushered the couple towards the dressing room. "You can wait out here; groom shouldn't see the bride in her dress right?"

"I'll help her, we aren't very traditional." He told her with a wink and a smile, pushing past her and into the dressing room.

Celia debated her next move while the two were in the dressing room, finally deciding to call Gordon, and in hushed whispers telling him to get down there right now. She hung up the phone and jumped as the two came out of the dressing room. "You two startled me!" She told them with a small sheepish smile.

"We'll take this one." The man told her, handing her a dress and pulling a credit card out of his wallet.

Celia took her time wrapping the dress up, stalling for time as long as possible. "Where are you two tying the knot?"

"Just outside of town." He told her noncommittally. "Nice little place in the woods."

"The Lodges at Rice Creek." Lacey added with a smile. To an observer, she would look like an elated bride to be. To Celia she looked terrified. Celia couldn't stall any longer; she noted the name on the card and asked to see his ID, to make sure the two matched. "Scott Callaghan." She muttered as she looked at the two. "That's it. You two have a nice day." She said glancing out the window for her husband.

The couple walked out of the shop, and Lacey looked over her shoulder at Celia, who nodded at her. Lacey nodded back quickly and tears started welling up in her eyes as she walked away from the only shred of family she had seen in the past ten years.

_**CHARMING, CA**_

The Sons sat in the chapel, wondering why Clay had called an emergency meeting of church. Clay sat down at the head of the table staring at the men in front of him.

Clay sighed before looking directly at Piney. "I got some news from SAMTAC today... it's about Lacey. His old lady said she spotted her at her shop today."

The Sons started muttering to each other in surprise, before Piney spoke over all of them. "Are they sure it's her?"

Clay shrugged. "Celia's pretty damn sure, said Lacey was dropping hints. I don't want you to get your hopes up though brother." He turned to the club, telling all of them, "We gotta go quick, who's in?"

Piney and Opie left the table to grab their bags, answering Clay's question. Tig, Jax and Chibs threw their hands up and Clay adjourned the meeting, letting them know they were leaving in 20 minutes.

_**TACOMA, WA**_

Lacey paced back and forth in the hotel room nervously; fiddling with the fabric of the white dress she was wearing. It was stupid to take him to Celia's. If he had caught on, if he had grown suspicious… she would hope he would kill her quickly. When he told her they would go wherever she wanted for their wedding and honeymoon, she had to try to take a chance. Scott didn't know her father was in the Sons of Anarchy, much less that there was a charter in Tacoma, all he knew was her father was in a motorcycle club. She had to try one last time to get away. The past ten years, it had been drilled into her head that she was to be his wife. He had handpicked her; she was going to grow into his perfect woman. And now, on her 24th birthday, she was his perfect woman. He had never touched her sexually; he told her he was saving her for their wedding night.

Instead he molded her into his dream woman. He told her what to wear, what to eat, what to cook, and how to behave. Every facet of her life was planned by him, including her exercise and diet. He kept her under lock and key, his princess in the tower. The only she had been given was the oppourtunity to decorate the home they lived in however she wanted. Scott admitted he had no eye for such things, and would bring her catalogs to order new furniture, paint, window treatments, accessories, and whatever else she needed. When he first took her, she was locked up every hour of the day; he would even chain her to the floor when she would cook dinner. She'd tried to escape, the first two years, any opening she had she would take, but could never get far. The house they lived in was in the woods, miles from an actual road. The few times she'd made it out the door, she had ended up so horribly lost, she was actually happy when he finally found her.

Anytime she did something to make Scott angry, his true temper would show. He had beaten her, more times than she could count, and after the escape attempt that resulted in her being lost in the woods for days, he had branded her hip with his initials, like ranchers branded their cattle in case they got separated from the herd. It was humiliating, and recounting the incident, Lacey put her hand over the brand feeling the heat and pain she had felt. It was one of many scars, physical and emotional that she had acquired during her 'training'.

Lacey finally decide to stop trying to leave when Scott finally insured he would never lose her. After trying to sneak out a downstairs window, and failing miserably, Scott didn't yell, didn't hit her, didn't even speak to her. He had even made dinner for the two of them that night, waiting on Lacey hand and foot. After dinner, she began to feel woozy and dizzy, and remembered trying to stand up and hitting the floor.

The next morning, she woke to a throbbing pain in the back of her neck, and a bandage on the wound. "I put a tracking chip in you, like a GPS in a car, that way if you ever leave me, I'll find you." Scott promised.

Lacey's trip down memory lane was over when Scott walked into the room. He looked her over adoringly as Lacey finished pinning up her long blond hair on top of her head. "You look beautiful." He told her, kissing her forehead. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." She told him blankly. He opened the hotel door and ushered her out to the gazebo where they would say their vows.

They stood in front of the minister, who was reciting a bible verse before the vows, when the rumble of motorcycles began. Scott knitted his eyebrows together at the noise that was getting louder and louder. The noises stopped as the bikes parked, and the minister went back to his Bible, when a group of leather clad men ran into the courtyard. Scott's eyes widened with realization, this was no accident, this was the day he'd been dreading for ten years.

"How could you?" He hissed at Lacey, who was staring, stunned at the men crossing the grass towards them. When she looked over at Scott he was already gone, running off into the woods surrounding the hotel. A few Sons broke off from the pack to chase after him while the rest approached Lacey slowly, like a wounded animal.

Piney caught up to the group pushing through his brothers to stand next to his son in front his daughter. Celia had been right, even after ten years, there was no way it would have been anyone else but her.

Lacey stared back at the men, assessing them. Her father had aged terribly in the past ten years, and her brother looked like a mountain man, but at that moment, they were the two most beautiful things she had ever seen. Finally she spoke to them.

"Hi."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N- THANK YOU FOR ALL THE ALERTS AND TO MY REVIEWERS. PLEASE CONTINUE TO REVIEW, I APPRECIATE YOUR OPINIONS!**

The ride back to SAMTAC's clubhouse was quiet, Lacey sitting next to Piney, with Piney's arm firmly around her. Tig and a few of the SAMTAC men stayed behind to comb through the woods for Scott, and make sure any onlookers kept their mouths shut. When they got to the clubhouse, Celia was waiting for them, and enveloped Lacey in a firm hug, squeezing her tightly. As Lacey relaxed into the hug, the realization of what just happened finally hit her. She was free. She wouldn't be spending her whole life with the psychotic man who was obsessed with her becoming his perfect wife. She was with family, she was home.

Lacey began sobbing, not out of fear, pain or anger like she had so many times in the last ten years, but out of happiness. Celia held the girl, stroking her hair until Lacey finally composed herself, pulling away. "Thank you." She told Celia, knowing she owed her life to the woman.

Lacey looked over at her father, standing with his club. "Thank you too, all of you." She told them, wiping the tears off her face, and looking down at the wedding dress she was still wearing. "Can I borrow some clothes?" She asked with a disgusted look on her face.

Opie chuckled, "Celia got you some stuff for the next couple days, when we get back to Charming Gemma will take you shopping." He ushered her down a hallway and into a free dorm room, the bed covered in makeup, clothes, bath products, shoes, and anything else a girl could need to get ready. "She went a little overboard." Opie told her. "Do you need anything?" He asked, hovering in the doorway.

"I'm fine, I think I'm just going to go to bed." She told him as the exhaustion from the day finally hit her.

"Alright, we'll leave in the morning to go back home." Opie told her, planting a kiss on top of head. "Glad you're home." He told her, as if she'd been gone for a week, instead of ten years.

"Me too." She told him with a small smile. After Opie closed the door behind him, Lacey looked through the things on the bed slowly, piling them on the empty desk in the room after she'd looked them over. Finally reaching the end of Celia's generosity, Lacey got together a plethora of soaps and conditioners and took the most blissful shower possible in a somewhat clean clubhouse shower.

After the water finally ran cold, Lacey toweled off and put on a large t-shirt and pair of shorts, crawling into the bed and staring at the ceiling. What would she do now? She wasn't under the thumb of Scott anymore. She wasn't even sure what she liked anymore, she knew what Scott told her she liked, but what did she like?

Lacey wiped a few stray tears away, before giving up and letting herself cry into her pillow until she drifted off to sleep. Outside the door Opie listened to his sister cry, debating with himself about whether or not to go in. He finally sighed, and walked away, hoping that tomorrow would be a better day.

**SOASOASOA**

After arriving in Charming, Piney and Opie took Lacey straight to Opie's house. "I'd have you stay with me, but my house isn't exactly visitor friendly." Piney told her as they walked in the house.

"Dad's house smells like tequila, weed, and pussy." Opie told her with a grin.

"Gross." Lacey muttered, looking around the guest room that was going to be hers. Opie put the bag of Celia's donations down on the bed.

"The kids should be home soon, they uh… they don't know much about you." Opie told her sheepishly.

"You have kids?" Lacey said incredulously. "Poor things." She said with a teasing grin.

"Yeah, and if you don't stuff it, I'll make sure they terrorize you." He told her.

"Are you married?" Lacey asked him, not noticing a feminine touch to the house.

"Not anymore." He told her sadly. "Remember Donna?"

"You married Donna! I loved her! What did you do to mess it up?" Lacey asked, jokingly.

"She died." Opie told her. "…in a car accident." He added quietly.

"Oh… I'm, I'm so sorry." Lacey said frantically.

"You didn't know sweetheart." Piney told her, putting an arm around her. "He probably would have messed it up eventually." He said with a wink.

"Yeah, probably." Opie assured her.

The three stood in the room in an awkward silence for what seemed like an hour, but in reality was only a few seconds, until Piney cleared his throat. "Gemma wants to take you out tomorrow, go shopping and do some other girlie shit."

Lacey nodded, she knew she needed some clothes; she couldn't live in the three outfits Celia gave her forever.

"She's throwing a big family dinner tonight too, we are expected to attend." Opie added in.

"She used to do those all the time when we were kids. I can't believe she still goes to all that trouble." Lacey said, reminiscing about hovering around Gemma and her mother while they'd be cooking, trying to sneak a bite from the cake or pie they were making, and getting her hand smacked more than once for it.

The front door opened and slammed shut, and Piney grinned. "The hellions are home." He told her.

The three walked out into the living room, where Ellie and Kenny were emptying their backpacks and shedding their shoes. "Hi Dad, Hi Grandpa." Kenny said, while Ellie waved a hand while untying her shoes.

"Guys, I want you to meet someone. This is your Aunt Lacey. She's gonna stay with us for a while." Opie told them, while Lacey shifted her weight back and forth between her feet nervously.

"Hi." Kenny said, staring at his new Aunt.

"I thought you died." Ellie told her bluntly.

"Ellie!" Opie chastised.

"That's what Grandma said!" Ellie protested.

"Your Grandma is wrong."Piney told her gruffly.

"It's OK Dad, she didn't know." Lacey told him. "I promise while I'm here I'll help you guys break all your Dad's rules" She told the two children with an exaggerated wink.

Opie rolled his eyes and sighed. "Figures." He grumbled. "Come on guys lets go get ready to go over to Clay and Gemma's." he told the kids, ushering them to their bedrooms.

**SOASOASOA**

Despite Opie's best efforts, the Winston clan was still 15 minutes late to the dinner. "Gemma's gonna skin us."Opie bemoaned as they walked in the door.

"Nah, we'll just blame it on Lacey. She can't get mad at her." Piney told him.

"I told you 7pm!" Gemma shouted across the room, crossing over and giving Lacey a hug. "Hi baby." She said sweetly, kissing the girl's forehead.

"It's Lacey's fault we were late." Opie offered.

"It's true, I uh… had to fix my hair." Lacey told her with an earnest look.

"Uh huh." Gemma said through pursed lips. "Come say hello to everyone else." She told Lacey, ushering her away from Piney and Opie. Clay grabbed Lacey, picking her up while squeezing her tightly.

"Welcome home." Clay told his Goddaughter.

"Clay I saw you yesterday." Lacey said with a giggle.

"I know, but indulge an old man will ya?" Clay asked her.

Lacey made her rounds, shocked that Tara and Jax were still together, pleased to see Kozik had moved to Charming, terrified of the new silent man named Happy, and a little apprehensive to be introduced to Chibs, Juice, Phil and Miles, all of which hadn't been around before the 'incident'.

During dinner, everyone did their best to catch Lacey up on their lives, while avoiding the subject of her life entirely. Clay got a phone call and stepped away from the table while the group watched him, all conversation stopping.

Clay came back to the table after hanging up, sitting down with a sigh. "Tig's on his way back."

"With a body I hope." Piney muttered.

"Couldn't find the bastard, said he must've found a cave or some shit." Clay told them.

Lacey dropped her fork, pushing her chair out as her face paled. She started shaking and Opie furrowed his brow as he put an arm around her. "It's alright, we'll find him."

"No… no… he'll find me." Lacey said in a quivering voice. "He'll find me, he always finds me." She jumped up from her chair. "Excuse me." She muttered, running into the backyard. Piney started to go after her, but Gemma and Tara got up instead, assuring him that they would take care of it.

Lacey was pacing the backyard fence line like a caged animal. Tara and Gemma caught up with her and kept stride for a few minutes, before Gemma finally grabbed the girl by the shoulders. "Enough. Talk to us."

"He knows where I am, every minute of every day." Lacey whispered to them through her tears.

"He won't find you, not before the Sons find him." Tara told her.

"YES! Yes he will! The chip he put in me… it's like a GPS!" Lacey yelled rubbing the back of her neck on reflex.

Tara and Gemma stared at the girl like she'd grown a second head. "There's… there's no such thing sweetie." Tara assured her.

Lacey narrowed her eyes at her. "Yes there is. He knew where I was every second, every time I tried to escape, he found me. I know what he did."

"Baby, I promise you, if there is a way he's tracking you, it won't matter. Those men in there aren't going to let a hair on your head out of place." Gemma told her calmly. "In the meantime, we'll get Juice to make sure there's no way he could be tracking you. That little hacker's got to be good for something."

Lacey nodded, and asked for a few minutes alone, so Tara and Gemma walked back into the house together. "Gemma, there is no way there is a technology like that." Tara whispered.

"I know that, but aside from cutting the damn girl open, she isn't going to believe us, at least she's appeased… for now." Gemma said glancing back at Lacey, who was still rubbing the back of her neck, her fingers tracing the cross shaped scar.

"He'll find me." Lacey told herself.

**A/N- PLEASE REVIEW! REVIEWS MAKE ME POST FASTER. **


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N- PLEASE REVIEW AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF THIS CHAPTER, IT WAS HARD TO FIGURE OUT AND TO WRITE, SO HOPEFULLY IT CAME OUT GOOD!**_

Lacey stepped out of Gemma's car, a new woman. She'd had her hair cut, layered and falling just past her shoulders, and at Gemma's urging, fresh highlights. She'd gotten her makeup done, and was wearing form fitting jeans and a low cut blue top. Gemma snapped at Miles, instructing him to empty the trunk full of new clothes, shoes and accessories and put them in Opie's truck. Piney approached the two of them, looking grumpy. He kissed Lacey's cheek. "Did you have fun baby?"

Lacey nodded and smiled. "I did… do you like my hair?"

"Looks good darling." He told her.

Piney stepped aside with Gemma while Lacey talked to Opie and expressed his displeasure at Lacey's transformation. "You didn't have to tart her up Gem, she looks like…"

"Like an adult?" Gemma asked, cutting him off. "Piney, she's not 1 years old anymore. She's 24. She looks like a 24 year old."

Piney glanced back at his daughter who was listening to Opie and Bobby tell a story, and back at Gemma. "I didn't get to grumble about her clothes and makeup and all that shit when she was a teenager, let me have this now."

Gemma sighed. "You can bitch to me. Not to her. She needs to know its ok to be adult her, not 14 year old her. So come to me to complain when she drinks a beer, or smokes a cigarette, or goes on a date. Let her be."

Lacey eyed Gemma anxiously and followed her into the clubhouse. "Did you talk to Juice yet? About… the chip?" Lacey asked her, whispering the last part, for fear her father or a club member would overhear her. She glanced around and aside from Tara glancing over and waving, it didn't seem like anyone was paying them any attention. It was foolish to want to keep it from Piney, but she knew he would have an aneurism if he found out, and she didn't want to add any more stress and worry on him. Plus, she knew Tara thought she was crazy when she found out about the chip, she didn't want her father and brother to think the same.

"Oh uh, let me go talk to him for a minute." Gemma said, turning away from Lacey and rolling her eyes as she looked for Juice in the garage. She had hoped Lacey would drop the issue, but it obviously wasn't going to be that easy. "Juice!" She yelled at the Puerto Rican under the car.

Juice rolled out from the car and jumped up. "What's going on?" He asked with a dash of nervousness. Gemma talking to him always made him a little nervous.

Gemma sighed. "Lacey thinks that… piece of shit… put a chip in her, to track her. She's freaking out about it, and I told her you'd check into it."

Juice scratched the back of his head. "There's no such thing…"

"I know that, and you know that, but _she _doesn't know that. Just go talk to her will ya? Show her some computer mojo or something." Gemma ordered him.

"Yeah, yeah…" Juice said. "I'll uh… show her some research on the internet or something."

"Whatever you've got to do to convince that poor girl that she's not walking around with a tracker in her like some lo jacked car." Gemma fumed. The underlying tones in her voice told Juice that failure was not an option.

Juice found Lacey sitting at the bar, fidgeting with a cocktail straw and shaking her leg. "Hey, uh Gemma said you wanted to talk about…"

Lacey interrupted him, "Can we talk somewhere… quieter?" She asked, glancing around the clubhouse to see if anyone was listening to them.

"Yeah, uhhh… come on." Juice told her, leading her back to his dorm room. Lacey looked at all the various computer parts and other unidentifiable hi tech gadgets lying around. She was satisfied that if anyone would be able to help her, it would be this guy.

Lacey sat on the edge of the bed, and Juice brought over his laptop and sat next to her, pulling up article after article saying that human tracking technology didn't exist, and wouldn't exist for at least ten to fifteen years.

"See, there's no way he could've done anything like that. There's just no way." Juice told her gently as she scanned the screen.

"You're wrong… he told me he did it… I have the scar… He's really smart, he must have figured out some way." Lacey insisted, her eyes pleading with him.

"Jesus Christ…" Juice muttered, wiping his face. "I'm gonna go get a beer, and then we'll… look at some more stuff." He stood up, handing her the computer. "I'll be right back." He promised her as he left.

Lacey stood up and paced the room. He didn't believe her either, he thought she was crazy. She just needed to show them, they had to believe her about how dangerous Scott was. She pulled her hair up and examined the cross shaped scar on her neck. It wasn't too big, maybe if she just cut it back open, she could find the chip herself, and prove it to them.

She saw a pocket knife on the dresser and opened it, testing the sharpness with the tip of her finger. She hesitated as she held it up to the back of her neck, looking through the mirror. Bracing herself she cut the vertical line of her scar, exhaling the breath she didn't know she had been holding. "That wasn't so bad, she told herself, lining the blade up with the longer horizontal line, ignoring the blood trickling down her neck.

Just as she started to make the second cut, Juice walked in the room. "I wasn't sure if you wanted one too, so I grabbed you one, but if you don't want it I'll drink… Holy shit!" He said, looking up and seeing the bloody mess on her neck. He grabbed the knife out of her hand, and grabbed a t-shirt off the table, holding it up to her neck and wrapping an arm around her back. "What are you doing?" He asked her.

"I needed to prove it to you!" She insisted trying to pull away from him.

Juice looked around the room, formulating a plan quickly, he'd seen this kind of stuff on TV before, maybe it would work. "Alright, I'll look for it, I've got a better angle than you anyway, just… let me grab some tweezers." He told her frantically. Walking to his bathroom Juice palmed the smallest computer chip on his desk, and grabbed a set of tweezers. "Lay down." He ordered her, hoping like hell this would work. He pulled the bloody t-shirt away and put the chip down on her neck, let it get covered in blood, and pressed the tweezers into the wound, grimacing as he did it. After a few seconds, he couldn't take it anymore, and picked up the chip in the tweezers. "I got it." He told her, putting the shirt back on the wound.

"You did? Really?" She asked, sitting up and examining the chip in Juice's hand. "Thank you." She told him, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Yeah, no problem." He said, dropping the chip on the floor and stepping on it. "It's gone now. You don't have to worry anymore… I'm gonna go get Chibs to stitch you up."

"No, not him, I don't want him to tell my Dad… he'll worry." Lacey pleaded with him.

"You gotta have stitches Lace." Juice told her, exasperated. He paced back and forth for a second before looking up. "What about Tara?"

Lacey thought about it for a minute before nodding. "OK… Tara."

"Don't move." He ordered, taking the knife with him. He found Tara snuggling with Jax on a couch in the main room of the clubhouse. "Hey doc, could you come help me with something real quick?"

Tara knitted her eyebrows in confusion, as did Jax. "Sure, what's going on?" She asked, getting off the couch, Jax following suit.

"Uh…. Lacey has some… ummm… female questions… if you could grab your bag and come help her out…" Juice lied, hoping Jax would lose interest. Sure enough, Jax plopped right back down on the couch, and Tara followed Juice alone, picking up her bag, even though she wasn't sure why she would possibly need it. "Listen. Whatever she says, just… go along with it, I'll explain later." Juice told her quickly.

Walking into Juice's room and seeing Lacey, Tara glared at Juice. "What did you do?" She hissed at him, sitting on the bed next to Lacey, and examining the wound.

"I didn't do anything!" Juice told her, angry at the fact that everyone always thought the worst of him.

"He got the chip out Tara!" Lacey told her. "Don't be mad at him."

"She cut her neck open and I got the chip out." Juice reiterated, widening his eyes at her and nodding slowly, hoping she would catch on.

"Oh… good." Tara said. "Well, let's stitch you up." She told her, cleaning the wound. "Do you have any pain killers or anything?" She asked Juice.

"No… but I can try to find some." Juice offered, starting to leave.

"I'll be fine." Lacey insisted. "I'm used to dealing with pain."

Juice and Tara exchanged sad looks over Lacey's head at the girl's statement. "OK, well, I'll get to work then."

Juice sat next to Lacey as Tara worked, watching her twist the bedsheets as she gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. He grabbed her hand letting her squeeze it, and watched with a sad look. "Why was six afraid of seven?" He asked her.

"I don't know." She forced out.

"Because seven ate nine." He told her with a grin.

Lacey groaned at his terrible joke, but laughed in spite of herself.

"What's the difference between bird flu and swine flu?" He asked.

"What?"

"If you have bird flu, you need tweetment. If you have swine flu, you need oink-ment!" He told her with a snort.

"I think that one was worse than the last one." She told him with a giggle.

"I've got a million of them." He promised her, and true to his word, kept them coming until Tara finished the final stitch.

"You're not going to tell anyone are you?" Lacey asked Tara as she cleaned up.

Tara sighed. "Lacey…" She said with a warning tone.

"Please?" She pleaded.

"Fine." Tara told her. "But don't do anything like that ever again." Tara told her sternly. "You scared the crap out of me, and I'm surprised that Juice didn't pass out."

"Sorry." Lacey said guiltily. "Sorry Juice." She told the tattooed man.

"It's alright." He told her with a lopsided grin. "Do you want to hear another joke?"

"NO!" Tara and Lacey both yelled, before dissolving into a fit of giggles.

Juice rolled his eyes. "No one appreciates my sense of humor around here."

_**A/N- LET ME KNOW IF YOU LIKED THIS CHAPTER, LIKE I SAID, IT WAS PRETTY DIFFICULT TO WRITE. PLUS MORE REVIEWS MAKE ME WRITE THE NEXT CHAPTERS FASTER! ;)**_


	4. Chapter 4

Two weeks had passed since the 'neck incident' and Lacey was going stir crazy sitting around Opie's house. She'd enjoyed getting to know Ellie and Kenny, and her Dad had been hovering around pretty much every waking hour, but she had to face facts: She was bored. She'd cleaned and reorganized every common area of the house, and rearranged the furniture to be a bit more visually appealing. Now, short of cleaning Opie's bedroom, a task she didn't relish, Lacey was out of things to do.

She heard her Dad's motorcycle pull up and set her mind to telling him that she had to find something to do with herself. "Hi Daddy." She said, kissing his stubbly cheek.

"Hi Sweetheart, I got something to talk to you about. Sit down with me?" He asked her, sitting on the couch. Lacey sat next to him and gave him a questioning look. "Juice has been looking for leads on this… Scott, but he's come up empty so far, he has questions for you, stuff that could help with the search."

"I…" Lacey started, but was interrupted.

"I know talking about him will be hard, but I want to find him. I want him to pay for what he did." Piney added.

Lacey thought about it for a minute. As much as she hated the idea of delving into her past, with a stranger no less, she would at least get out of the house for a while, and could maybe have an adult conversation with someone who didn't treat her like the kid she was ten years ago. "I'll try to help." She told her father. "I don't know how much I could do though…"

"Just do what you can." Piney told her. "Let's get up to the clubhouse."

**SOASOASOA**

Lacey entered the clubhouse nervously, waving at Bobby and Chibs who were currently at the bar, taking a 'beer break'. "Hey Lace." Juice called from a booth in the corner or the room, waving her over. Lacey sat down beside, looking at the computer screen, trying to make sense of the jumble of names and numbers, and subsequently giving up.

"So, all we've got is his name, and a credit card, that he only used one time… for the umm… dress." Juice told her. "I need something else… Do you know his social?"

"No… No." Lacey said, shaking her head.

"That's fine, it was kind of a long shot question." Juice assured her. "What about an address?"

Lacey shook her head again, starting to get frustrated with herself.

"Do you know what state he lived in?" He tried.

"Ummm Maine… or… New Jersey… maybe Vermont…" She racked her brain. "I'm sorry… I don't know for sure." She put her head in her hands and groaned at how unhelpful she was.

"It's fine, don't worry about it. Let's… let's take a quick break and put some music on. What kind of music do you like?"

"Umm… well Scott really liked Country… and Jazz." Lacey told him.

"Did you like it?" Juice asked her.

"Not really…" She began. "No, I didn't."

"Well… let's start with some stuff on the radio now." Juice told her, pulling up his ITunes playlist and clicking on a song. "This is Hollywood Undead."

The two listened to the song for a minute and Juice asked her, "Do you like it?"

"Do you?" Lacey asked him.

"It doesn't matter what I like." Juice insisted.

"Then… I guess… I'm not crazy about it." She told him honestly.

"Cool, that's fine… what about this?" He asked putting on another song.

Lacey liked this one much better, bobbing her head in time. "What is this?" She asked.

"3Oh!3. It's called Starstruckk." He told her.

"I like it." She told him with a smile.

"Figures." He said rolling his eyes dramatically and grinning.

"Why?"

"I dunno, it's a chick song."

"Well, I am a chick." She reminded him.

"Yes you are." Juice said, giving her a quick once over before clearing his throat. "We should, um… get back to work." He started typing into his computer frantically. "Do you know how old he is?"

Lacey groaned, and the two got back to work, mostly unsuccessfully, until Opie and Piney sauntered into the clubhouse, wearing twin conspiratorial grins. "We got ya something baby girl." Piney told her.

"What?" She asked him, confused.

"Come outside." Opie told her, pulling her out of the booth. Lacey shot a look back at Juice, who just shrugged and went back to his computer. Opie put his hands over Lacey's eyes and walked her out to the parking lot, finally pulling his hands away and smiling from ear to ear.

In front of Lacey was a (semi) new blue Honda Accord and Piney was extending a set of keys out to her. "Oh… umm is this…"

"All for you little sis." Opie told her. "We'll go get you a license tomorrow."

"Thank you." She forced out, plastering a smile on her face and hugging both of them. "I should probably study a couple days… for the test." She thought quickly, trying to buy herself some time.

"Yeah, that sounds good, we'll get you a book or something. Do you want to take it for a spin?" Opie asked her.

"Oh umm… not right now… I don't want to get pulled over or anything…" She offered. She felt her tears welling up, and excused herself, walking as fast as she could into what she thought was an empty bay. She started sobbing and didn't notice Happy roll out from under a car and stand up.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked in his gravelly voice

"Nothing." She told him, wiping the tears off her face.

Happy shrugged and started to go back to work, when Lacey finally spoke.

"They got me a car." She said in a small trembly voice.

"And… you don't like the color?" He asked her, not following her train of thought.

"I don't know how to drive. I don't have a license." She said sadly.

"So?" He asked her.

"So? So I'm 24 and I've never driven a car! I've never been on a date, I've never kissed anyone that didn't want to force me to marry them, I've never had a job, and I've never lived on my own…" She rambled on until Happy grabbed her face and pressed his lips to hers.

She was caught off guard, and took a minute before she pulled away, giving him an offended look.

"I definitely don't want to marry you so… one thing down. Quit bitching, and start knocking shit off the list. It isn't hard." He told her.

Lacey glared at him. "Are you crazy? How dare you just… kiss me like that!" She yelled at him.

Happy rolled his eyes, and got back down on the creeper. "Damn women… Last time I try to help." He grunted, going back to his work.

Now angry and upset, Lacey went back inside and sat back down with Juice, who eyed her carefully. "Everything OK?" he asked her.

"Yeah." She said, not meeting his gaze.

"Really? Cause… you look like shit." He told her.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Thanks."

"I just meant… I mean… you've got black shit smeared on your face." Juice stumbled out.

Lacey gasped and grabbed a compact out of her purse, wiping the oil from Happy's hands off.

"You want to talk about something?" He asked her when she was done.

"No." She said, before biting her lip. "Actually… could I ask you a favor?"

"Yeah, what's up?" He asked.

"Could you… could you maybe teach me… how to drive?" Lacey spit out finally.

"How to drive?" Juice repeated, making sure he heard her correctly.

"It's fine if you don't want to…" Lacey started babbling, before Juice cut her off.

"No, its fine, I'll teach you, but why not ask Piney… or Opie… or anyone?" He asked her.

"I don't want to make Dad and Opie feel bad that they got me a car, but didn't think to find out if I could drive. All the other guys think of me as a kid still, or I haven't ever spoken to them, except that Happy guy, but he kind of scares me." Lacey confessed.

"Well, I'll teach you. Do you wanna go now?" He asked her.

"Now? Like… right now?" She asked in surprise.

"No time like the present." He told her.

**SOASOASOA**

After telling Opie she had changed her mind was going to take the car (with a patch) and would see him at the house, she and Juice snuck the car off the lot, and Juice pulled over, letting Lacey get in the driver's seat. Juice talked her through the basics, before grinning. "You ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." She said, putting the car into what she thought was drive, but grimaced when she pressed the gas and the car didn't move. Juice grabbed her hand that was clutching the gear shift, pulling it from neutral to drive.

"Happens all the time." He assured her. She left her foot on the brake, and Juice left his hand on hers. The two sat like that for a minute, before it got too awkward for both of them, and Lacey finally pulled onto the neighborhood street, very carefully following Juice's directions on where to turn. "You can go a little faster you know." He told her gently.

"The speed limit is 30." She reminded him.

"You're going 12." He shot back good naturedly.

"Oh…" She said, blushing from her embarrassment.

"Heh." He laughed.

"What?"

"I've never seen someone really blush before." He told her, causing her to blush even more.

"So, have you thought about what you want to do… like work wise?" He asked her, changing the subject.

"Not really."

"Well, what do you like to do?"

Lacey sighed. "I don't really know, the only thing I enjoyed doing at Scott's was decorating the house… you know, like painting the walls and picking out furniture and stuff, but I can't exactly make a career out of that."

"Hmm…" Juice said thoughtfully, formulating a plan in his head. "So, can I ask you something, without you yelling, or hitting me, or being offended?"

"You have a lot of issues, don't you?" Lacey asked him. "I guess you can ask."

"Why do you want to hide everything from your Dad and the rest of the guys? You know they wouldn't be mad or anything."

Lacey sighed. "I know. I just… I don't want to be poor little Lacey. I don't want my Dad to feel like he needs to worry about me all the time. All the guys, they all knew me as this little annoying kid hanging out at the clubhouse, and now they think of me like… damaged goods. I just want to be normal."

"Your Dad has been less worried since you've been home than he has been the whole time I've been here. He'd worry about you regardless of your situation, because he's your Dad." Juice told her earnestly, as she pulled to a stop. "And you are not…" He told her putting his hand under her chin and pulling her face to look at his. "damaged goods." He told her with a serious expression on his face.

"Thanks." She told him with a smile, before setting her sights back on the road. They drove in silence for a few minutes, before Juice spoke again.

"If you need to talk about shit… you can talk to me. But I still think you should talk to Op and your dad more."

"OK."

"OK, you'll talk to me if you need to, or OK you'll talk to your Dad and brother more?"

"Just… OK." She told him with a small grin.

"Women." Juice muttered, before cranking the radio up. "I love this song!" he told her, before playing air guitar and dancing in his seat. Lacey turned to watch him, laughing at his goofiness, until Juice looked up and yelled. "Whoa! Stop!"

Lacey looked forward to see a stop sign pass and a car in front of her. She slammed on the brakes as the other car swerved and honked, and they both pitched forward in their seats. Lacey took in several shaky breaths, muttering "oh my God, oh my God" as she tried to get her heart to stop beating out of her chest. She turned to look at Juice, who was still clutching the dashboard, his face pale. She started giggling, then full on laughing uncontrollably at his terrified face.

"This is not funny! We could've died!" He told her, but started laughing in spite of himself. He reached over and switched the radio off. "We'll work on the radio the next lesson."

_**A/N- PLEASE REVIEW AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!**_


	5. Chapter 5

The next week flew by, and before she knew it, Lacey was going with Piney to take her driving test. She paced nervously in the clubhouse, waiting for her Dad to get out of church. When the Sons filed out of chapel, Lacey plastered on a smile as they gave her well wishes and good lucks. Juice pulled her aside and asked her, "You nervous?" while Opie watched them curiously.

"No…" She lied, as Juice gave her a disbelieving look. "Yes." She admitted.

"Don't be, you've got this… just don't get distracted by the idiot in the passenger seat." He told her with a laugh.

"I doubt the DMV guy will be as distracting as you…" Lacey said somewhat flirtatiously, before clearing her throat. "Thanks… for everything." She told him with a small smile and nod, before walking over to Piney and walking out the door.

**SOASOASOA**

A COUPLE HOURS LATER, Lacey burst through the clubhouse door, Piney behind her chuckling. "I did it!" She yelled her brother who was playing poker with Jax, Happy, Bobby, and Tig. Opie jumped up and gave Lacey a bear hug, picking her up and spinning her around.

"Good job sunshine." Bobby told her, ruffling her hair. Tig gave her a hug and a kiss on the forehead.

"This calls for a celebration." Jax said, handing her his beer and clapping her on the back.

Piney grabbed the beer away giving Jax a disapproving look. Lacey rolled her eyes at him but laughed when Piney handed her a bottle of tequila instead. "My daughter isn't getting drunk her first time on that piss water."

"Dad… I got drunk my first time when I was 13." She told him with a sheepish grin as she took a drink from the tequila bottle, and gagged on the burning liquid. She looked at Piney who was still giving her a disapproving look and added, "Opie and Jax gave me the booze."

"You little snitch!" Opie growled at her.

Lacey laughed before asking him, "Is Juice around?"

"I think he's working on his bike out in the garage." Opie told her, narrowing his eyes at her question.

"I'll be right back." She told the men, walking out to the garage and spotting Juice. "Juice!" She called out, getting his attention. "I did it!" She told him running towards him, throwing her arms around him and squeezing him tight. He put his arms around her waist, and picked her up, laughing with her.

"I knew you would." He told her, putting her down and looking into her eyes as she still smiled at him. He wasn't sure why his heart was beating so fast, or why his palms were getting sweaty, and he definitely didn't appreciate the feeling of his jeans tightening as he looked at her glossy lips.

Lacey stared into Juice's eyes, fighting the overwhelming urge to kiss him. He was just doing her a favor and being nice after all, she didn't need to go ruin it by throwing herself at him. The two pulled apart, both feeling sufficiently awkward. "I'm going to go have a drink with my Dad and some of the guys, if you want to come join us."

"Yeah, I'll be in there in a minute." He told her, wanting some time to compose himself. Just as Lacey walked out the side door, Opie walked in through the open bay door, and Juice had a mini heart attack. Opie didn't look like he had a thirst for his blood, which was a good sign. Maybe he didn't see anything between the two that could possibly be construed as inappropriate. Maybe Juice would get to keep his balls for another day.

"She likes you." Opie said nonchalantly.

"What? No, we're just… We're friends." Juice babbled, as Opie looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

"I know that." Opie told him. "Do you think she's happy? I mean… she tells Pop and I that she is, but… I dunno, is there something else we should do?"

"Maybe a job?"

"Doing what?" Opie said, giving the matter thought.

"She said she likes decorating and shit. Maybe Gemma could work her influence and get her a job with Oswald's wife or something?" Juice told him. Eliot Oswald's wife was the owner of a successful real estate company.

"Yeah, I'll talk to her about it." Opie said, still coming up with an idea in his head. "I'm glad she has someone she can talk to. I don't think she tells Dad and me everything."

"I don't think she tells anyone everything." Juice told him honestly.

"But she's ok though right? Up here?" Opie asked, motioning to his head.

"Yeah…" Juice said, being careful not to include the whole 'chip incident' in his assessment.

"I guess it's all good then." Opie told him, clapping him on the back. "Thanks brother."

Juice let out a breath as Opie walked away. Opie paused and turned back around, "Oh yeah…Juice. You ever put a move on her; I'll break your fucking legs… brother."

Juice stared at him, but Opie chuckled and Juice relaxed a bit, laughing with him, but forgetting to breathe when Opie dropped his smile and stared at him seriously.

"Fuck." Juice said to himself as Opie left.

**SOASOASOA**

The next three months flew by for Lacey and she felt like she was getting her life on the right track. Once Gemma learned of her penchant for design, she got Karen Oswald to agree to hire her on as a stager for the houses she was selling. Even though it wasn't exactly the most creative job, she enjoyed the positive feedback and mentoring she was getting, and she was building a portfolio. Karen was originally hesitant to hire someone so closely affiliated to the Sons, but she had to admit the girl had an eye for design, and she was pleasant to be around.

Things were going so well in Lacey's life; she was even debating getting an apartment of her own. She hadn't been around the clubhouse much, just to see her brother and Dad, who was still hovering over her, showing up at Opie's house every day that he wasn't out of town for a run, or in bed with a Croweater. Unfortunately, Juice had been stand offish with her, and she hadn't seen him for more than a couple minutes in the clubhouse. She knew it was stupid to have a school girl crush on the man, but she couldn't help it. Now that finding Scott had been put on the backburner, and she hadn't had any more nuclear meltdowns in front of him, he was back to his normal life of booze, pussy, and going on runs with the club. He had helped her out, and Lacey had clearly taken his generosity the wrong way.

Because things were going so well, Lacey was beginning to get a sense of dread, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She was constantly looking over her shoulder, waiting for Scott to show up, to rip her away from her happy life, again. No matter how many times she told herself she was being stupid, she couldn't shake the feeling.

Lacey drove up to the clubhouse, prepared to talk to Gemma about one thing in her life that hadn't been going so well. "Gemma? Can I talk to you a second?" She asked as she walked into the office.

"What's going on Baby girl?" Gemma asked, putting away the paperwork she was working on away, and leaning back in her chair.

"Have you… Have you talked to my Mom?" She said nervously.

"You haven't?" Gemma asked, furrowing her brow.

"No, I've asked Dad about it, but… he kind of changes the subject, says that she's really busy right now." Lacey stumbled over her words.

Gemma's eyes darkened in anger, and she jumped up, grabbing her purse. "Come on." She told Lacey, who was following her out to Gemma's car.

"Where are we going?"

"To see your mother." Gemma told her ominously.

The two drove for close to 2 hours, towards Fresno where the two parked in front of a nice two story home in a nice quiet neighborhood. "You know where she lives?" Lacey asked her, slightly impressed, and slightly intimidated.

"It's my business to know." Gemma told her, stalking up to the front door, and knocking heavily.

Mary opened the door slowly, and then stared through the screen door. "My baby…" She said softly, tears welling up in her eyes.

Lacey stared at her Mom, tears threatening to spill and waited for some sort of sign from her mother. Mary didn't open the door, or make a move towards her daughter. Gemma watched Mary carefully, before finally rolling her eyes and yanking the door open. "So nice of you to invite us in." Gemma muttered as she took Lacey's hand and pulled her into the door, pushing past Mary.

The three of them stood in Mary's living room, and Lacey looked around slowly; her mom had a couple pictures of Ellie and Kenny, but none of Opie, and none of her. Her Mom still hadn't touched her, and Lacey was getting tired of waiting, finally throwing her arms around her neck and giving her the hug she was hoping to get.

Mary embraced her daughter finally, dissolving into tears as she clutched her shirt, as if she be snatched away at any moment. "Now isn't that nice?" Gemma asked when the two finally let go of each other and sat down across from each other, while Gemma lounged in Mary's recliner. "Would've been nicer if it had happened three months ago."

"Gemma." Lacey said in a warning tone. Mary just ignored Gemma, a skill she'd learned long ago, and turned to her daughter.

"I suppose I owe you an explanation." Mary said quietly, while Gemma snorted and lit a cigarette. "I don't smoke in my house." She told Gemma over her shoulder, but Gemma just shrugged, taking a puff from her cigarette and ashing in a glass of water.

Mary took a deep breath, trying to formulate the words she was feeling. "I left Charming… I left for a reason, and I told myself I'm never going back." She began.

"You didn't think you could make an exception? For me?" Lacey asked her, perplexed.

"No. That club, that town… that life… its poison Lacey. I told your father the only way I'd be able to see you, would be if you came here." Mary defended.

"Well that's not selfish at all." Gemma quipped putting her hands up in a surrender when Lacey shot her another warning look.

"I told Piney I wanted you to live here. I told him I could give you a place to stay."

"So long as I stayed out of Charming?" Lacey asked, putting the puzzle pieces together. "How could you say that, Dad and Opie, they were the ones that found me… if it wasn't for the Sons…" She trailed off, disgusted at the thought of cutting her Father out of her life after everything.

"They'll also be the death of you. They are poison, Lacey. They aren't good people. I tried to keep your brother away but your father turned him against me… just like he's doing to you."

"My _FATHER, _never gave up hope, he never told my niece that I was dead!" Lacey said, feeling her face flush with anger.

"What was I supposed to think Lacey? What was I supposed to do? You were gone! The police told us the odds…"

"Oh yes, poor Mary, that self appointed cross you bear is just getting enormous." Gemma sniped, unable to hold her tongue any longer.

"You are the reason my family left me. You and your honeyed words, your manipulative mind. You couldn't stand the thought of Clay losing some of his brothers, and you ripped them away from me!" Mary raged, jumping out of her seat.

"Sweetie, your family left you because you gave them an ultimatum. They left because it was your way or the highway, and the call of the road was stronger than you." Gemma hissed.

Lacey watched the two women tearing open old wounds before finally having enough. "That's enough! This isn't about either of you! This is about me! This is about me finding out why my own Mother, who I thought about every single day, doesn't want me around!" Lacey took a breath before looking Mary in the eyes. "How long was it before you just, gave up… a year? A month? A week? Couple of days?" Lacey demanded to know.

"I still thought about you, but I needed to make peace, I needed a way to go on living!" Mary insisted.

"Well I'm so sorry I messed up your peace." Lacey hissed, venom dripping from her words.

"Please baby, I still want you, I still need you. Just come stay with me, you can make a new life here." Mary pleaded.

"I already have new life. A damn good one, with my Dad and my brother and my_ family. _In Charming." Lacey told her.

"I'd rather you be dead than be in that life!" Mary yelled, finally snapping. "I'd rather you be dead than turn into another Gemma!"

"I could only hope to be as strong of a woman as Gemma is." Lacey told her mother in a low voice. "You know what, you've got your wish, as far as your concerned, just keep thinking I'm dead, you seem happier that way." Lacey turned on her heel running out the door.

Gemma stood up, looking at Mary smugly. "I hope you're happy, you've stolen my entire family from me!" Mary wailed, tears falling down her face.

"No sweetheart, you drove them away. I hope you're happy that when you're on your deathbed, you'll be alone, just like you wanted, and when I'm on mine, I'll be surrounded by my family." Gemma told the woman coldly, before walking out.

Lacey was still running , not sure of where she was, or how she got there, but knowing she wanted to be as far away from her mother as possible. She finally stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Scott, walking a dog with a little boy. Her vision started blurring, and her fingers started tingling as she got a tight feeling in her chest, and started having trouble breathing, taking big gulping breaths, but feeling like she wasn't getting any air. She sat on the concrete when the man turned around, and wasn't Scott at all, just a man walking his dog gin his neighborhood, shooting a confused look at the girl. Lacey did her best to calm herself down taking slower breaths, telling herself over and over it wasn't him.

Just as she felt somewhat normal again, Gemma pulled her car up. "If you're looking for Charming you're going the wrong way." She told Lacey through the window before narrowing her eyes. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah." Lacey said, pulling herself up.

"Are you sure? You're pale… and sweaty." Gemma told her, wrinkling her nose.

"I'm just upset." Lacey lied.

"Hmm." Gemma said, dropping the issue… for now. "Come on baby, let's go home."

_**A/N- PLEASE REVIEW AND LET ME KNOW HOW YOU THINK IT'S GOING, THIS WAS ANOTHER DIFFICULT CHAPTER TO WRITE AND I'D LOVE SOME FEEDBACK.**_


	6. Chapter 6

Gemma and Lacey pulled back up to the clubhouse just before dark. "You want to hang around, have a couple drinks?" Gemma asked her. "Guys are having a party."

"I guess." Lacey said glumly.

"Well you don't have to be so excited about it." Gemma joked. "Come on, let's get you some liquor."

Lacey sat at the bar, the clubhouse was nearly empty, the Sons were in church, and there were only a couple early partygoers. Gemma banged on the Chapel door, and let herself in, presumably to let Piney know what happened in Fresno. "What can I get you?" Phil asked from behind the bar.

"I don't care, something with alcohol in it." Lacey told him, not looking up from the spot on the bar she was examining. Phil dropped a shot of tequila and a beer down in front of her, and she took the shot quickly, still not quite used to the nasty burning in her throat, but liking the warm belly feeling after.

Lacey jumped when a pair of arms draped over her shoulders, leaning all their weight on her, almost falling out of her seat. She turned around to see her brother grinning like an idiot. "Jesus Christ Opie, you're going to give me a heart attack." She chastised. "And I almost spilled my beer." She added with a stern look.

"You alright?" He asked her.

"Yeah… it's fine."

"No, it's not fine. It's fucked up." Opie corrected.

"In case you hadn't noticed, that's kind of the theme for my life." Lacey told him.

Opie gave her a sad look, "well it shouldn't be. Do you want anything?"

"Nah, I'm good." Lacey told him. "Don't worry; I'll be sure to bug you if I need anything."

"Sounds about right." Opie grumbled as Piney walked over to them.

"I'm sorry about your Mom…" Piney began as Lacey held hand up to stop him.

"Don't worry about it Dad, she made her choice, and I made mine." She said stoically.

"Gemma's madder than a hornet's nest." Piney told her.

"Yeah I picked up on that." Lacey said with a humorless laugh.

"She also said you didn't look so hot when she picked you up." Piney said with a concerned look.

"I told her, I was just pissed, and had been running, so I wasn't exactly looking my best." Lacey told him.

Piney desperately wanted to believe her, so he put aside the nagging feeling she wasn't telling him everything and nodded instead, kissing the top of her head. "Ok princess."

"You guys don't have to babysit me, go have fun. Those girls over there look so upset you aren't acknowledging their existence." Lacey told them, motioning to the group of Crow Eaters sitting at a table together.

"You sure?" Opie asked her, not confident in just leaving her to her own devices at a SAMCRO party.

"Yeah, go!" Lacey insisted, shooing them away. "I probably won't stick around long anyway."

Opie and Piney retreated to secure a warm body for the night, leaving Lacey alone with her thoughts again.

After sitting alone for a few minutes, Lacey stirred up the courage to talk to Juice.

"Do you have a cigarette I can bum?" She asked him, ignoring the daggers the sweet butts were shooting her.

"Yeah, sure." Juice told her, handing her his pack, telling her to keep it.

She got another shot and another beer, then decided to head up to the roof, where she could smoke a cigarette and think in peace. She stared out into the night sky as she lit one of Juice's cigarettes, coughing on the first drag, her first cigarette in ten years.

"Thinking of taking up a new habit?" Juice asked from behind her, startling her.

"Well it just makes me look so cool." Lacey joked as she settled down back on her perch.

"Want some company?" He asked her.

Lacey shrugged, scooting over and giving him room. "Haven't seen much of you lately." She told him as he lit his own cigarette.

"Yeah, I've had club shit going on…" Juice lied. How was he supposed to tell her he was avoiding her so he wouldn't fall for her, and subsequently get his legs broken?

"It's fine, you're not my babysitter." Lacey told him.

"How are you holding up?" Juice asked her.

"Kinda wishing Gemma hadn't broadcasted my Mommy issues through the clubhouse." Lacey admitted.

"She didn't broadcast it through the clubhouse… just the chapel." Juice said, trying to lighten the mood. Lacey scoffed, but didn't respond. "If it makes you feel any better… I don't even know my Dad. I saw him once, when I was like 8, I think… it might have been the mailman."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Lacey told him. "Did you feel… did you feel like…"

"Like an unwanted piece of baggage on a conveyor, waiting for someone to pick you up?" Juice finished for her.

"A little more of an airport analogy than I was going for but… yeah." She admitted, sighing and leaning on her elbow, her head in her hand.

"It gets easier. I didn't have best relationship with my Mom either, but being here, in SAMCRo I feel like I have more family than I know what to do with. You still have your Dad, and your brother… Clay and Gemma and Jax… and me." He teased, pushing against her.

"How could I forget about you?" She asked with a smile.

"Just don't let it happen again." He warned, putting an arm around her and squeezing her, leaving his arm there when she leaned her head against his shoulder.

"It sucks." She admitted to him, not having any intentions of moving her head, or Juice's arm.

"Yeah, it does." He told her, kissing the top of her head. "But it will get better."

The two sat in comfortable silence, enjoying the closeness, until Lacey saw the clubhouse door open, and pushed Juice to the floor, out of sight from anyone on the ground. "What the hell?" He asked, but shut up when he heard Piney's voice bellowing from below.

"Lacey Marie Winston, where the hell did you get that cigarette?" He demanded.

"Opie gave it to me." She told him with a grin.

"You're a damn liar!" Opie yelled back at her, standing next to his Father. "She's a damn liar." He told his Dad, who was shooting daggers at him.

**TACOMA, WA**

Celia sighed as she finally had a moment of peace. Her last client of the day had been a bitch to please, and Celia ended up staying an hour later than she normally did, sending the girl that worked for her home. Deciding to save the little cleaning that needed to be done for the next day, she grabbed her purse, heading to the front door, when she saw a familiar face crossing the street with a baseball bat in his hand.

"Oh shit." She muttered, locking the front door, even though she knew it was futile, the glass door and the window next to it would be no match for a bat. She called Gordo, yelling in hurried tones for him to get there, and tried to exit the back door, when the glass in the window shattered, raining shards on the sales floor. A large hand grabbed her by the hair throwing her on the ground and hitting her in the stomach with that bat.

"How could you do this to me? How could you take her away from me? It's all your fault!" Scott bellowed, taking the bat to the glass counter and racks of dresses. Celia started to sit up, preparing to run if necessary, cursing herself for leaving the one gun in the shop in her back office. She grabbed a large shard of glass next to her, ready to use it. When Scott saw her movement, he stalked towards her, and Celia managed to imbed the shard into his leg, causing him to howl in pain before swinging the bat and solidly hitting her across her cheeks and nose, the bones cracking as the bat made contact. Scott continued to rant about Celia taking her away from him, and she knew she needed Gordo to get there fast if she had any hope of surviving.

"I don't know what you're talking about…" Celia pleaded, hoping to feign ignorance.

"YES YOU DO!" He screamed kicking her in the side. "I know you do! I'm not fucking stupid!" he raged, kicking her over and over, unable to stop himself even if he wanted to.

"Please… stop." She whispered as she felt ribs snap like twigs under his shoe.

"You took Rebecca from me! I lost her once; I'm not losing her again!" Scott insisted, Celia wasn't sure if it was the pain making her mishear the name he was shouting, but she was pretty positive it wasn't Lacey.

"My husband will be coming to pick me up soon, if you don't leave, he'll catch you." Celia told him, hoping the threat was enough to escape death. If Scott heard her, he didn't acknowledge the woman, still hell bent on destroying the shop, and the owner in it.

Scott straddled her, picking her head up off the floor and hissing "It's all your fault" at the woman, before banging her head against the wood floor. Just as Celia heard the distinctive sound of Harley's approaching, Scott bashed her head against the floor again, and the world went black.

_**A/N- AS ALWAYS PLEASE REVIEW, IT INSPIRES ME TO WRITE MORE CHAPTERS!**_


	7. Chapter 7

Clay sat at the table at 8 am, looking at the Sons, most of which were bleary eyed from the party last night. "Gordo's old lady was attacked last night… by the douche bag. (The club's standard name for Scott) He tore apart her shop and took a baseball bat to her, knocked her around pretty good." Clay told them, staring at Piney and Opie pointedly. "I sent Juice and Happy to Tacoma last night to volunteer their skills; we need to send a show of support down there, especially if they get a lead. Jax, Opie, Piney, Kozik and I will ride up there tonight."Clay declared.

"If that fucker's back, I need to be here to protect Lacey." Piney argued.

"You need to be where I tell you." Clay corrected, but softened his expression. "Chibs, Bobby, Tig, and the prospects will take care of her. We'll keep a patch on her the whole time."

"No one can tell her what happened." Opie declared. "She'd blame herself… she's just getting her shit together, this could kill her."

The other Sons murmured agreement, agreeing to stand behind Opie and keeping the incident a secret from Lacey. "As far as Lacey knows, this is just a run to Tacoma." Clay told the group, before setting a ride time and banging the gavel.

SOASOASOA

Later in the day, Lacey stopped by Teller-Morrow after work to see her brother and… maybe get another fleeting moment with Juice. Lacey walked into the bay where Opie was swearing at a Miata on the lift. "Stupid fucking foreign piece of crap." He muttered, only looking at Lacey when she giggled at him. He got a brief look of guilt on his face, knowing he was going to have to lie to her face.

"Is the big mean car getting the best of you?" She teased her brother.

Opie glared at her, and then cleared his throat. "Would you watch the kids for a couple of days? Dad and I are going on a run."

"Yeah, I can do that." Lacey said nonchalantly.

"Some of the guys that aren't going will stay at the house with you… maybe go with you to work too." Opie added carefully.

"Opie, I don't need a babysitter." Lacey insisted.

"I know, it'll make Pop feel better if someone is watching out for you… It'll make me feel better too." He added, deliberately leaving out why having an eye on her was so important.

Lacey rolled her eyes but muttered "fine" before walking into the clubhouse, partially to look for Gemma, but mostly to see if Juice was around. Seeing neither of them, she sat at the bar, pulling her phone out and checking her email, half listening to the prospects cleaning behind the bar talk.

"Man, I wish I could go on the run tonight. I can't wait to be a patched member; I've always heard Tacoma has the best parties. " Miles said to Phil as they cleaned old spills off the bar top.

"I heard the patches talking, said that the prez's old lady got beat all to hell and her store got destroyed… I doubt there will be much partying going on." Phil told him with a shrug as he checked all the liquor bottles.

Lacey stared at the two of them, narrowing her eyes. "What did you just say?" She asked them, causing them to jump at her notice of them.

"Uh… we were just talking about the run to Tacoma tonight…" Miles said nervously, hoping she wouldn't tell any of the Sons that they were complaining; it would make their lives much more difficult.

"To Tacoma… and Gordo's old lady got hurt?" She clarified her mind putting two and two together.

"Uh… I'm not sure, I just kinda heard Tig and Clay talking… and geez please don't tell them I was listening to them, I can't clean Tig's sex toys again… I just can't do it." Phil told her nervously.

"Don't worry about them." Lacey said, steam coming out of her ears. She jumped up, stalking out the door, yelling Opie's name as soon as her feet hit the concrete. Opie came striding out of the work bay, looking at her in confusion while the rest of the Sons watched the two.

"How dare you!" She screamed, trying to push him, but not able to move his large frame. "How could you not tell me!"

"Tell you what?" Opie asked, feigning innocence.

"Where are you going tonight Opie?" She asked in a low voice.

"Tacoma." He told her honestly.

"Why?" She demanded.

"Club business." He said simply, looking over at his Father who was walking over to them.

"Club business?" She said, before laughing humorlessly. "Club business?" She said louder, incredulous. "You don't think I'd want to know that Celia got beat up?"

"Shit." Opie said quietly.

"Yeah." Lacey said raising her eyebrows and nodding, "Shit." She looked at him and her father with hurt in her eyes. "It was him wasn't it? That's why you didn't tell me?"

"We didn't want to upset you, princess." Piney told her, trying to put a hand on her shoulder, only to have it pushed away.

"Didn't want to upset…Of course I'm upset, this is MY FAULT! I brought him there!" She screamed, her voice hoarse.

"No, baby it is not your fault." Piney told her, but Lacey ignored him.

"I can't trust you…" She said to both of them, shaking her head, before stomping to her car.

"Where are you going?" Opie yelled at her.

"Tacoma!" She yelled, slamming her car door and pulling out of the lot.

"Fuck." Opie said quietly, looking at his Dad. "I'm gonna go follow her, bring my bag tonight?" He asked his Dad, before getting on his bike and peeling out of the lot, tailing his very angry, very upset, very unstable sister.

**SOASOASOA**

Lacey finally pulled into the Tacoma clubhouse, exhausted from her nonstop drive. Opie pulled in behind her, and she glared at him before walking into the clubhouse. She glanced around at the melancholy crowd, noticing Juice in the corner on his computer and Gordo nursing a bottle of whisky at the bar. Lacey went to Gordo and he offered her a small smile. He knew this wasn't the girl's fault, but he needed someone to blame, and since no one could find the fucker that did this, he couldn't help but feel a pang of anger when he saw her. He gave her a small half hug, before excusing himself to talk to Opie, and Lacey stood in the clubhouse, lost.

Juice looked up from his computer, doing a double take when he saw Lacey standing by the bar with a hurt expression on her face. She looked over at him, and he waved her over, trying to focus on her face and not the way she filled out her jeans. "Hey, fancy seeing you here." He told her with a goofy grin.

"Hey." She said with a twinge of sadness in her voice.

"Do you want a beer?" He asked her. She nodded and Juice motioned for a croweater to go get a round for the two. He offered her a smile, putting an arm around her and hugging her as best he could sitting next to her.

"I think Gordo's mad at me… about what happened." She told him with a sigh.

"He's not mad at you, he's just mad. He knows you didn't do anything." Juice told her, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. She grasped his desperately, as if she would float away without it, and they sat like that for a minute before Juice noticed that Opie was looking at the two from across the room and got back to work on his computer.

"What are you doing?" Lacey asked him, watching him click through what looked like medical files.

"Celia got a good chunk of glass in his leg, and he'd need stitches. I'm looking for hospital admissions" He told her.

"He wouldn't go to the hospital for that." Lacey told him, her eyebrows knitted in confusion.

"Why not?" Juice asked her.

"He knows how to do stitches… he did them on me all the time… and I saw him stitch himself up once." She explained, her face grimacing at the memories.

"So… is he like a doctor or something?"

"I… I don't know…" Lacey said honestly.

"Well if he knew how to do stitches, he had to have some sort of medical background." Juice said excitedly, typing rapidly on his computer. "You said he lived somewhere on the East Coast, and we have a name… and a profession… aaaaaaand…" Juice said, finally clicking on a picture. "Is that him?"

"Yes… He's older now, but…oh my God… that's him." Lacey whispered, reading the description below the picture:

_** Callahan  
Callahan and Associates Pediatric Office**_

Juice jumped up from the table excitedly, grabbing Gordo and Opie, telling them of their find, and Lacey slipped quietly out the door, sitting on a picnic table and lighting a cigarette. They finally found him, no thanks to her. How could she not know that he was a doctor? How could she not realize that if she took him to Celia's he'd attack her? How could she be so stupid?

Opie and Juice formulated a plan, Tara would call the douche bag's office under the guise of a consultation, and try to get a contact number, or ideally a call back that they could trace to find out if he was still in the area. Opie watched Lacey walk out the door and sighed, throwing an arm around Juice. "Hey… could you go check on her? She's pissed at me, and I know she's got a lot of crazy shit going through her head right now. She needs a… brother. Just consider her a… sister." Opie told him, emphasizing the brother and sister part carefully with a menacing look, squeezing Juice tightly to really drive home each word.

"Yeah, of course man." Juice told him walking outside and seeing Lacey sitting on the picnic table, sobbing uncontrollably. Juice grabbed her immediately, pulling her off the table and wrapping his arms around her, it wrenching his heart to watch her cry. She put her face into his chest, while he ran a hand through her hair, shushing her softly, telling her it would be OK. When she finally calmed down she pulled her face away from him, looking at him with a pleading look.

"I'm such an idiot, Juice. How could I not know he was a doctor? How could I not know that he would blame Celia for everything? I shouldn't have…" She trailed off, leaning her forehead against his chest again.

"Shouldn't have what? Gone to her shop? Don't you dare ever say that, if you hadn't been that _smart_, you would still be with him, I never would have met you… and I can't imagine you not being here." He told her earnestly, wiping the tears from her face. She looked at him, finally awarding him with a small smile, and if telepathically communicating, the two kissed, feeling the heat between their lips. Juice got lost in the kiss for a minute, completely euphoric, before remembering Opie's friendly warnings, and pulling away.

"I'm sorry… that was inappropriate…I'm sorry." Juice babbled, still not able to move his arms off of her.

"I didn't exactly mind it." She told him softly, looking up at him through her lashes.

"Some people would definitely mind it…" He whispered, licking the taste of her tears and lip gloss off his lips. As they stood together it felt like everything about them was in sync down to their blinking and breathing. Juice swore softly under his breath before kissing her again, feeling like he would dissolve into a puddle of joy as she sighed happily behind his lips. He finally came to his senses and pulled away, stepping away from her. "We can't do this." He told her, regretfully. "Not right now at least… your brother, your dad, shit Clay and Jax, they'd never let this happen."

"I know." She said sadly. She wasn't stupid, the idea of her dating was a foreign concept to her overprotective family, and for them to find out that she was involved with Juice would cause a war in the charter: something they didn't need.

The two stood awkwardly, neither knowing what to say next. "I can't… I can't just avoid you anymore, it didn't work." Juice told her.

"We could always… be friends… with lots of tension?" She suggested, half joking.

"I'd rather do that than not see you." He confessed. They both nodded, dead set on the new plan, friends with sexual tension.

Opie walked outside, and Juice said a silent thank you to any and every God that Opie hadn't walked out a few minutes earlier and beaten Juice into, well, juice. He flicked his head at Juice, motioning for him to leave and he sat on the table, offering Lacey the spot beside before lighting up a joint and offering it to her.

She took it from him with a quick smile taking a small hit before giving back to him. "You gonna dime me out to Pop?" He asked her as they passed the joint.

"Probably." She admitted with a sly grin.

He rolled his eyes but couldn't help but smile at the admission. "The others will be here soon; they left pretty soon after us." Lacey nodded and Opie took a breath. "Listen, I'm sorry alright? I screwed up."

"Yeah you did." Lacey said with a snort, the haze of being high starting to fog her brain.

"I should have told you, I just… I don't want to do anything to hurt you, or upset you, or… do anything but make your life as happy as possible." He told her.

"Opie, being sad and hurt and upset, that's part of life. You can't keep me in this bubble. I lost ten years of my life that I will never get back. Now, I just want to live my life, like a normal person. You can't expect me to get over what happened if you don't let me feel normal."

"I don't even know what happened. I want to know, I have all of these horrible thoughts that I can never get out of my head, and they make so fucking angry I just want to kill that douche bag and I can't find him, and I just want to make sure you never go through all the things in my head ever again."

"You want to know what happened?" She asked him, taking a deep drag off the joint. "It _was_ horrible Op. I got the shit beat out of me… a lot. I got 'trained' on how to be this lunatic's dead wife. I… I have a brand, like a fucking cow, but I survived it, and if I could survive that, I can survive anything this world throws at me."

Opie took in everything she told him and nodded. "Thank you." He said finally. "I'll make a deal with you; I'll stop treating you like a kid, if you start trusting me… like you trust Juice." He told her with a sideways glance.

"Juice and I…" she began, not sure how to explain.

"Come on, I'm not stupid, he's the only one that's been able to get anything out of you besides 'I'm fine'." Opie told her. "I'm glad you have a friend you can talk to, but I mean…come on, I'm awesome."

"Are you jealous?" Lacey asked him with a giggle as he handed her the joint back.

"No." Opie told her. "Yes." He said grumpily. "I get that you don't want to talk to Dad, but before all this shit, I was the cool brother, remember?"

"You did used to let me tag along when you and Jax hung out with your friends." She reminisced.

"AND covered for you when you got drunk with your stupid friends and threw up all over the bathroom." He reminded her.

"Yeah, I guess you were alright." She said, taking one last hit off the joint as the Charming Sons rode into the lot. Piney parked his bike and walked over to the two, grateful to see they had made up. He sniffed the air when he reached them, as Lacey threw the roach behind her back, both her and Opie doing their best not to laugh.

"You're high." Piney said matter-of-factly, giving his children what he hoped was stern, fatherly look.

Lacey dissolved into a fit of giggles and Opie followed suit as Piney rolled his eyes. "Opie did it." Lacey managed to force out as she laughed, and Opie jumped up a shocked look on his face.

"Little snitch!" He said with a faux anger, causing her to lie back on the table, laughing even more. Juice watched the scene from the clubhouse door, and watched Lacey laugh, her head thrown back off the edge of the table, hair hanging down like a curtain. God help him he thought she was beautiful, and being friends with her might just kill him faster than Opie.

_**A/N- PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW, LOTS OF DIFFICULT DIALOUGE TO WRITE, AND I'D LOVE SOME OPINIONS ON IT!**_


	8. Chapter 8

Lacey stood in the hallway of the hospital mentally preparing herself to go see Celia. Opie had sent Juice with her just to keep an eye on her. They took her car; for fear that her arms wrapped around him on his bike would be enough to blow their friendship all to hell. "You OK?" Juice asked her, watching her pace.

"Yeah… why wouldn't I be?" She told him.

"You've been wearing a hole in the floor for 20 minutes." He reminded her.

"Do you think she's mad?" Lacey asked him with a nervous expression.

"I think the only way she'd be mad at you is if she found out you asked that." Juice told her sincerely. "From what I've heard, she's crazy about you."

"Yeah… you're right." Lacey said, taking a breath. "I'm going in now." She told Juice, and herself. Juice looked at her in encouragement, opening the door for her.

Lacey took in a sharp breath when she saw the bruises on Celia, and the tubes snaking from the IV into her arm. Celia looked up from the TV, smiling widely and shooing the Tacoma Son watching over her out of the room. "I'm so sorry." Lacey said softly, taking Celia's hand.

"Sorry I didn't shoot his ass? Me too." Celia said with a small laugh.

"No… I'm sorry…" Lacey started to explain.

"If you blame yourself for this, I will spank you, I don't care that you're an adult." Celia warned her. Lacey gave her a sad puppy dog look, and Celia rolled her eyes. "Sweetie, if I could do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing… except maybe getting a bullet in that asshole, instead of just some glass."

"You saved my life." Lacey told pointedly. "I just wish this isn't how you were repaid."

Celia shrugged looking tired. "I'm a tough woman sweetie. It'll take more than some douche bag with a God complex to take me down… I'm tired of talking about that asshole; tell me about what's been going on with you."

"I got a job…" Lacey said excitedly, explaining what she did and Juice grinned from the door, happy that his idea had turned out so well. "I'm thinking about talking to Opie and Dad about getting my own place…" She continued.

"Don't talk to them about it; just tell them you're doing it." Celia advised her. "You're a grown woman; you don't need their permission… Now what about your love life?"

"It's… ummm… it's nonexistent. " Lacey confessed, looking back at Juice on reflex.

"And why is that, pretty girl like you should be swimming in offers." Celia pried.

"I don't think my Dad is quite ready for me to date yet. You know how it is; no one will be good enough for his little girl." Lacey explained.

"Your Dad might have some issues at first, but a good guy with his head on straight and his shit together, he'll come around. You can't postpone your happiness any longer." Celia told her, glancing over at Juice with a knowing look.

**SOASOASOA**

After getting back from Tacoma, Juice took Celia's words to heart. He moved out of the clubhouse and got an apartment, he stopped changing croweaters like he changed underwear, and most importantly, he was very careful with his work for the club. No one had called him retard in two weeks. He and Lacey had been doing fairly well with the 'just friends' rule and aside from a couple of times when their hands touched, resulting in lingering wanton glances.

Lacey had managed to muster the courage to tell her Dad and Opie she was getting an apartment and they were surprisingly supportive. Her Dad had come up with the idea of her moving into Juice's apartment complex, it would keep a patch close to her. Opie tried to veto the idea, but Lacey batted her eyes telling them she would feel safer knowing Juice was close, and she got her way.

Tara had put in a phone call to the douche bag's office asking for a consult, and his secretary told her he was on a sabbatical but they would pass on her message to him when he called for his messages. Now Juice was carrying the phone with him, waiting impatiently for him to call so he could trace his location.

Juice really thought he had his shit together, and maybe could go to Opie about Lacey, until one fateful day when he took some of Tig's 'vitamins' before doing a job from the club and ended up outside the sheriff's office. Juice woke up to someone nudging him with their boot. He blinked, his eyes adjusting to the glare of the sun, and saw Hale staring down at him. "Hey, idiot, wake up."

Juice sat up looking around and realizing that he was out front of the police station, sleeping on the sidewalk. "You must have really pissed off your buddies." Hale told him with a cocky grin. "Get out of here, before I slap indecent exposure on you."

Juice stood up looking at down at his change in wardrobe. He was clad only in a diaper and his combat boots, with a cardboard sign stapled to his chest proclaiming 'Slightly Retarded Child, Please Adopt Me.' "Sorry chief, I don't know what happened. I gotta go, I'm late for my 8 o'clock feeding." He told Hale, starting the long walk to his apartment to get some pants. He made it a couple of blocks when a car slowed down next to him. He looked over and swore to himself. The last person he wanted to see like this was stopped next to him.

"Do you want a ride?" Lacey asked him, a smile playing on her lips.

"Uh… I'm good with walking." He said. Lacey gave him an 'are you serious' look, and looked across the street where several onlookers had stopped to gawk at him. "Actually… yeah. I'll take a ride." He said, hopping in the car.

Lacey looked him over in amusement, motioning to his sign and asking, "is that stapled on?"

"Ummm…" He said, pulling the sign off his chest, grimacing. "Yep." He told her with a goofy grin.

"Eww." She said while driving to their apartment building. "Don't leave that thing in my car." She warned him.

"So how do you like the new place?" He asked her; desperate to keep her distracted from asking why he was strolling down Main Street in a diaper.

"It's great, I have to call someone to get my internet hooked up though, I swear I followed the directions exactly that the guy left when he came to connect it, but I still can't figure it out." Lacey told him.

"I can hook up your internet for you; don't pay some asshole to it." Juice offered.

Lacey was a little taken aback by his offer. One unspoken rule they had between them was to never, ever, go into each other's apartment. It was too ripe with opportunities to be… inappropriate. "If you don't mind…" She said looking at him, making her heart leap as he looked back with his sexy brown eyes.

"Of course I don't mind." He told her softly, having to tear his gaze away for fear that his diaper wouldn't hide the… inappropriateness.

Lacey smiled as they pulled into the parking lot. "I'll make some dinner while you go change." She told him as they walked up the steps to their floor.

"What you don't like my outfit?" He asked, putting his hands on his hips and posing. "This is high fashion in some countries."

"Not this one." She said with a giggle as she unlocked her door. "See you in a little bit." She told him as he walked down the hall to his place.

After throwing on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and losing the diaper, Juice walked over to Lacey's where she was making stir fry. "Smells good." He told her as he made a beeline for her router and laptop, working his magic. After about 10 minutes of trouble shooting he grinned and stood up triumphantly. "Got it!" He told her.

"No way! I've been messing with that thing for days!" She told him, handing him a plate of food.

"I've got skills." He told her, shoveling the food into his mouth. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten, probably before he'd taken some of Tig's 'vitamins' and passed out for 24 hours straight. They finished their food quickly and Lacey went over to the tv, pulling up her Netflix.

"That's what you wanted the internet for?" He asked her with a laugh.

"Well… yeah. I have a lot of catching up to do, do you know how many tv shows I've missed?" She told him. Juice sat next to her on the couch taking the keyboard from her.

"Well, you're missing all the good ones!" He told her, pulling up her queue then adding liberally to it.

She looked through his additions, pausing on one after reading the description. "This one looks like a chick show." She told him with a smirk.

"Grey's Anatomy is a serious medical drama!" He insisted. "Just don't tell any of the guys I watch it."

"Wanna watch one before you go?" She asked him.

He glanced at his watch, he still needed to get back to the clubhouse for his bike, but it could wait a little longer. "Sure." He told her as she started the pilot.

Having seen the show before, he found himself watching Lacey more than the show, her legs curled under her while she fiddled with her necklace. "Where'd you get that? You've had it on every day." He asked her.

"Oh, my Dad gave it to me when I was 13. I was wearing it when Scott… the douche bag" She corrected herself, "took me. He took it from me for a while, but after he put the chip in me I was so upset he gave it back to try to cheer me up."

"Huh." Juice said. "Weird."

"Yeah." She said as the ending credits ran. Juice stood up, not able to put off getting his bike any longer. "Thank you." Lacey told him, hugging him for what she had planned to be quick and friendly.

The two ended up holding each other, Juice tightening his arms around her waist. She laid her head on his shoulder, her breath hot on his neck, and he could feel his jeans tighten from just the small affection. She lifted her head up, looking at him, her arms still around his neck. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, running his hand across her cheek as he brought it back down to her waist.

She licked her lips, not even fully aware she was doing it, and it set Juice over the edge. He kissed her deeply, and she returned the gesture eagerly. The stood, fixated on the spot, their tongues entangled, Juice's hands slipping up the back of her shirt, rubbing her skin with his calloused hands. She dropped her arms down to his waist, under his shirt, her fingers dancing along his waist line. He got bold, grabbing her ass and lifting her up, her legs wrapping around his waist. He pulled his lips away long enough to whisper "bedroom?" in her ear.

She nodded as she kissed his neck, pointing to the closed door. He carried her towards it, fumbling with the knob before opening the door and turning on the light, laying her gently on the bed. He pulled his shirt off, and she smiled in appreciation, drinking in his well defined chest. She pulled him down towards her, flipping over on top of him, straddling his waist. She kissed his neck, working her way down to his collar bone and chest and he moaned breathlessly, "Shit… Lacey…" before grabbing the hem of her shirt and pulling it over her head. He took her waist, and flipped her on her back, kissing her softly, down her stomach, pausing on a raised scar; he lifted his head up slightly, running his fingers over the SC brand.

Lacey bit her bottom lip as Juice examined the brand, worried he'd be disgusted, turned off by her marred past. He left his hand on the scar, looking up at her face before sliding up and kissing her deeply before whispering, "You're so beautiful."She smiled at him, reaching for his belt, when she heard her front door open and both of them sat up in alarm.

"Lace, you need to lock your door." Opie called from the living room.

"Shit." Lacey and Juice both said quietly. "Hide." Lacey told him, pointing at the bathroom as she grabbed her shirt, pulling it over her head quickly and walking into the living room.

"What are you doing here?" She asked Opie, hoping to sound casual.

"Looking for Juice, we uh… played a little joke on him, just making sure he finds his way home." Opie told her, looking at her suspiciously. "You seen him?"

"No." Lacey said quickly. "Is he not at his apartment?"

"No… I checked there."

"Oh well maybe he went for a drive?" She suggested.

"His bike's at the clubhouse." Opie told her.

"A walk?"

"I doubt he'd be walking around town in a diaper." He said with a laugh.

"A diaper?" Lacey said in what she hoped was a surprised voice. "Maybe he got arrested? You said that Hale has a serious hard on for you guys. Maybe he was arrested and he needs someone to bail him out?"

"Yeah… maybe." Opie said, still suspicious. "I'll go check." He told her, walking out the door. Lacey made sure to lock it behind him, and Juice came out of the bedroom, pulling his shirt back on.

"We have to stop this. It really isn't the right time to be springing this on everyone, and we can't hide it." Juice told her.

Lacey chewed her bottom lip as she thought. "You're right." She told him finally. "We were doing pretty good as friends before this whole… thing."

"Yeah… Yeah. We should do that, again." He said earnestly. "When I walk out that door, friends." He decided.

"Friends." She repeated. Juice leaned over, putting his hand on her hip, over her scar, kissing her one last time. He looked back at her wantonly with his hand on the door knob, before taking a deep breath, and walking out the door.

**A/N- PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW! ALSO, CHECK OUT THE STORY 'THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL' BY KRISTINMW. IT'S FREAKING AWESOME!**


	9. Chapter 9

Juice groaned when he was roused from his very inappropriate dream about Lacey by the shrill sound of a phone ringing. He checked his prepay and cell phone and neither were ringing. He quickly realized it was the douche bag hotline and jumped out of bed, opening the phone as he started up his laptop. "Dr. Dana Harwell's office, Carlos speaking." He said, after quickly racking his brain trying to remember Tara's cover story.

"This is Dr. Scott Callahan, Dr. Harwell left a message with my office for a consult."

"Oh, of course, Dr. Callahan, if you could hold for just a moment while I try to find Dr. Harwell." Juice said quickly, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he tried to find a location on the phone number. "I'm sorry she's not available right now, can I get a number she can reach you at?" Juice asked, hoping that the douche bag would hang on just a couple seconds longer.

"What hospital did Dr. Harwell say she was with?" Scott asked on the other line.

Crap. Juice couldn't for the life of him remember what the hospital's name was Tara gave the office. He grinned as an Oakdale address popped up on his computer screen. "Methodist." Juice guessed.

There was a brief pause on the other line, before Scott began laughing. "Nice try biker boy." He hissed, before hanging up the phone. Juice flew around his room, getting dressed in record time, before calling Opie and relaying the address, telling him to get the Sons and meet him there.

**SOASOASOA**

Lacey stared off into space as she thought about the night she'd had with Juice. It had been perfect, the way he told her she was beautiful, the way he kissed her… until Opie walked in and almost caught them. She knew he had been right that they needed to cool off, but damn if she couldn't help wanting to lock him in her apartment so he couldn't walk out the door.

She snapped herself out of her daydream when she saw Kozik walk through the door of the house she was working on. "What are you doing here?" She asked him.

"Douche bag sighting." He told her as he swaggered in, giving the room a once over.

"Really?" She said, feeling her pulse quickening and her heart racing. "What if it's a trick… what if he's coming here while they're gone?" She asked him, pacing around the room frantically.

"Hey… Hey…" Kozik said, trying to catch her as she paced. "HEY!" He finally yelled, grabbing her arm. "Nothing's gonna happen to you… you've got me!" He told her, opening his arms up as if presenting himself as a game show host.

Lacey rolled her eyes at him and flopped down on the couch. "I feel so secure." She muttered and Kozik gave her a pout. "Sorry, nothing personal." She told him as he flopped down next to her. "I just… I need to keep working and distract myself. Want to help?" She asked him, standing up and grabbing paint samples.

"No." Kozik said grumpily, his arms crossed as he sat back on the couch.

She rolled her eyes at him and painted two colors on the wall. "Which one?" She asked him.

"They both look beige." He told her.

"You're such a help." She told him, throwing him a roller. "Get up and help me." She told him.

The two of them painted the walls, Lacey checking out the window every few minutes nervously. Kozik's phone rang and he stepped away from Lacey to answer it. She watched him as his face marred with anger and did her best to get close enough to listen. Kozik kept turning away from her, talking so quietly she couldn't hear the conversation. He finally hung up and went back to painting and Lacey stared at him. "What did they say?" She asked him quietly.

**SOASOASOA**

Juice pulled up to the Fairmont Hotel and jumped off his bike stalking to the front desk. "I'm looking for Scott Callahan." He told the clerk.

"I'm sorry sir, but I can't give out guest's information." The petite girl behind the desk said.

"You better make an exception." Juice said menacingly, leaning over the desk till his face was inches from hers and dropping a wad of cash on the counter for her.

"OK, OK, just give me a minute." She stuttered, typing into her computer. "Room 215." She told him finally, scooping up the bills.

"Thanks." He said, finding the stairs and running up them, arriving in front of room 215. He pulled out his gun and kicked the door open, sweeping the room quickly. Aside from a note on the nightstand, the room was completely clear. Juice grabbed the note, reading it:

True Love Will Always Find A Way

Juice sat on the edge of the bed and sighed, putting his head in his hands, he wanted to be the one to find the fucker and end him. Now, he had a dead end, again.

**SOASOASOA**

"They didn't find him. He cleared out before they got there." Kozik said gently, watching her carefully. She bit her lower lip, the tears threatening to spill. Kozik hugged her and her tears betrayed her as the fell from her eyes, landing on his cut.

"I'm so tired of looking over my shoulder all the time, and being afraid, and I'm just so tired of being tired." She rambled wandering around the room, wringing her hands.

"We'll get him." Kozik promised her trying his best to catch up to her. "Just stop for a minute!" He finally said, giving up his chase. "Geez, it's like you're a damn squirrel or something." He told her. "We'll get him, OK, and you don't need to look over your shoulder! You're family! Nothing is going to happen to you, you have 9 guys… 11 if you count the prospects, who would take a bullet for you, and that's just in this town! If you count all the other chapters, you have 1,000's of people watching out for you!" Kozik told her. "So just… stop crying, it makes me really uncomfortable."

Lacey blinked at him, surprised at his rant. "Thanks, Koz." She said quietly as the front door opened and one of her coworkers came in.

"Wow, it looks good in here!" Kristin, one of Karen's assistant's, said. "Are you OK?" She asked Lacey, who's eyes were still red, and face blotchy.

"She's fine, just dealing with some… problems." Kozik answered for her.

Kristin looked over Kozik's cut putting on a flirtatious smile for him. "Boy problems?" She asked gently.

"Something like that." Kozik said.

"With you?" Kristin asked him.

"NO!" Lacey and Kozik both said simultaneously. "No way," Lacey babbled while Kozik spoke over her. "She's like a sister."

"Ooook." Kristin said. "Well, some of us are going to The Hairy Dog after work, you should come with us." She looked at Kozik pointedly, "both of you."

"Maybe." Lacey said.

"We'll be there." Kozik answered at the same time.

"Awesome, well Karen just wanted me to drop off some notes for you about the house, and let you know that the cabinet installers will be here tomorrow." Kristin said. "See you guys tonight!"

**SOASOASOA**

Opie, Jax, Tig, and Chibs showed up to the Fairmont just after Juice, finding him still sitting on the bed, looking pissed. "We missed him?" Tig asked, his sadistic smile fading.

"Yeah." Juice grunted, tossing the note left in the room to Opie.

Opie read it, his eyes darkening and he punched the wall, swearing loudly. Jax paced the room coming up with an idea. "If we get his credit card number can't you track it, see if he uses it again?" Jax asked Juice.

"If he used a credit card." Juice said glumly.

"A swanky place like this, they took a credit card for a deposit." Opie assured him.

"I'll go grease the counter girl to get it, then we'll head back." Jax said, hugging Opie. "We'll get him." He promised his brother.

The Sons rode back to Charming, making a beeline for the bar when they got back. Juice did his best to drown his disappointment in beer and rum, but couldn't seem to do it fast enough. He heard Opie relaying the news of their failure to Kozik, and he wanted desperately to go be with Lacey when she found out, to hold her and tell her everything was going to be OK. Unfortunately, due to the stupid friends rule, he was going to stay here and act like it wasn't a big deal that he let her down.

After Opie got off the phone, he took the stool next to Juice's getting a beer and eyeing Juice careful. "So where were you last night, before the clubhouse?"

"I took the long way back, trying to avoid most people." He lied.

"Really cause Hale said he saw you get into a blue car." Opie said suspiciously.

"Oh yeah! That was a friend of mine, gave me a ride to the apartment." Juice corrected.

"Uhhuh, a friend, or my sister?" Opie asked, staring at Juice as he waited for an answer.

"Just a friend. Listen man, I heard your warnings loud and clear, as far as Lacey is concerned, there's nothing going on there. She's like a little sister." Juice said, fairly convincingly. He even managed to convince himself just a little bit.

"Cool brother. Well, cheer up, I'll send some comfort your way." Opie told him, clapping him on the back.

"You don't have to do that." Juice said, mentally slapping himself as soon as the words left his mouth.

"You're turning down pussy?" Opie said suspiciously.

"Nah man, I just meant I can get my own pussy." Juice covered, waving over a croweater. "Get me another beer." He purred at her, slapping her ass. He got up and walked the girl over to an empty booth; smiling at her while she kissed his neck. She moved herself onto his lap, grinding against his crotch. Opie watched the two of them, looking satisfied. The clubhouse door opened, and Lacey walked in, Kozik trailing behind her.

"Hey sis!" Opie said, waving at her. Lacey froze when she saw Juice, her heart dropping to her knees as she watched the sweet butt kissing on Juice, rubbing her hands in all kinds of inappropriate places. Juice froze when he saw Lacey, resisting the urge to dump the whore off his lap. He saw Opie watching the two of them, his eyebrows knitted in thought as he saw Lacey's face. Juice looked at Lacey one more time, before turning his attention to his croweater.

"Hey, Op." She finally managed to choke out. "I'm going out with some friends from work. Kozik is going with me."

"Ok." He said, feeling very guilty about the exchange he just saw, but hoping it was worth it in the long run.

"I just… didn't want you to worry." She said, glancing over at Juice again, before walking out the door, Kozik waving at the club on his way out.

**SOASOASOA**

Lacey sat at the table with her work friends, and Kozik, well on her way to shit faced as she tried to drown the terrible day in sweet shots and beers. "Shouldn't you slow down a little, princess?" Kozik asked Lacey, after he lost count of her drinks.

"You can't tell me what to do." She told him, sticking her tongue out at him.

"Real mature." He told her, turning his attention to Lacey's friend Kristin, while an overhead announcement declared that the wet t-shirt contest would be starting soon.

"You should do it Lace! Get rowdy to get over that douche." Kristin said, still under the impression that Lacey was getting over a breakup.

"I do have a white shirt in my car." Lacey said with a wicked grin, tossing back another shot.

"Oh no princess, that's not a good idea." Kozik told her.

"Shut up Koz, I'm doing it." She told him, getting up from the table.

"I'm going on record: this is a bad idea!" Kozik insisted, but got distracted when Kristin started blowing in his ear.

A few minutes after she disappeared, Kozik's eyes widened as Juice, Opie, Tig and Bobby walked into the bar. "Shit." Kozik muttered, looking around for Lacey. If Opie saw her wasted and in a wet t-shirt he would lose his shit. Koz tried to get to the stage undetected, but Tig spotted him.

"Hey asshole!" Tig yelled, waving at him.

"Is Lacey here?" Opie asked him.

"Yeah, I think… I think she's in the bathroom."Kozik said nervously, jumping when the loudspeaker announced the beginning of the wet t-shirt contest.

"Yeaaaaaaaaah!" Tig yelled, "Bring on the titties!"

"Oh… no." Kozik muttered as the girls started walking onstage, Lacey at the end of the line.

"Lacey?" Opie and Juice asked, glaring at Kozik and pushing their way to the front of the stage, the rest of the Sons behind them.

"Lacey, what are you doing?" Juice asked her, noticing that she was wearing his Sons of Anarchy shirt tied up, the one he gave her after she sliced her neck open and had bled all over her shirt.

"I'm getting rowdy!" She yelled happily, pulling her bra out from under her shirt, and tossing it on Juice's head.

"Lacey, get down from there!" Juice told her, trying to grab her hand.

"It's none of your business what I do Juice. Right Opie?" She asked her brother maliciously, who was still standing, stunned.

"It's my business when you're wearing my shirt!" Juice yelled at her. Opie pulled his gaze from his sister to Juice, still shocked.

"Well, I'll just take it off then!" She said, grabbing the hem of the tied up shirt.

"NO!" The Sons all yelled, while one drunk behind them yelled, "yeah, let's see your titties!" Opie turned around, knocking the drunk out cold, before looking at the crowd. "Anyone else wanna see her chest?" He asked menacingly, before focusing back on Lacey and Juice.

"Lacey, stop! This shit is beneath you!" Juice told her.

Lacey leaned down looking at Juice eye to eye. "You know what's beneath me? You're beneath me, Juice." She hissed, and Juice stepped back as if she slapped him.

"Alright that's enough of this shit." Opie declared, grabbing her arms and throwing her over his shoulder.

"Opie! Put me down, Opie!" She protested drunkenly.

"Shut. Up." He growled.

**A/N- BONUS POINTS IF ANYONE CAN TELL ME WHAT SHOW THE WET T-SHIRT SCENE IS FROM. AS ALWAYS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N- THANK YOU FOR ALL THE REVIEWS, PLEASE KEEP THEM COMING THEY INSPIRE ME! ALSO I GOT THE WET T-SHIRT SCENE FROM GREEK, BUT APPARENTLY NCIS HAD ONE TOO!  
**

After making sure that Lacey was safely passed out in her bed, with Kozik safely sleeping on the couch, Opie decided to make a stop at Juice's. Juice answered the door, looking thoroughly annoyed at the person on the other side. He left the door opened and walked into the living room, Opie trailing behind him, and flopped down on the couch. Opie sat in the recliner across from him and stared at him.

"What?" Juice asked him finally.

"Wanna tell me what that was all about?" Opie asked him calmly.

"I don't know man." Juice told him.

"You knew she was wearing your shirt." Opie reminded him.

"Listen man, I kinda had a shitty day, and I really don't feel like you grilling me about your sister..." Juice began, but Opie stopped him.

"I not here to grill you about that brother. I saw the way she looked at you in the clubhouse, and the way you looked at her." Opie said. "I think I made a mistake."

"I think I made the mistake." Juice said glumly. "You know, I really like your sister. She's a good girl, and I wouldn't have treated her like a piece of ass. She deserves better than that. Now, because I was much of a pussy to just talk to you like a man, I fucked it all up."

Opie sighed slowly, his mind going a mile a minute. "I get that now. I'm not going to stand in your way anymore, if you two want to be together, then be together."

"I don't think there is any together anymore. She was so pissed tonight man. Maybe… maybe you could talk to her?"

"Hey brother, I said I wouldn't stand in your way, not that I'd play matchmaker, you're on your own for that." Opie told him, standing to leave. "And I'm not telling Pop. That's on you too." Opie added with a smirk as he walked out the door.

Juice stood up, pacing around the room, trying to figure out what to do. He finally walked out of his apartment and over to Lacey's, sending Kozik home. He walked into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her. Her face grimaced as she slept, and she started tossing and turning, trying to get away from the nightmare she was having.

Juice shook her awake gently, and she blinked at him, her eyes having trouble focusing. "Juice?" She said hoarsely.

"Yeah. You were having a nightmare." He explained.

"I'm drunk." She muttered unhappily, laying her head back down.

"I see that." He told her. "And I'm… sorry." He said.

She muttered what he thought was, 'talk about it tomorrow' and grabbed his shirt, pulling him down to lay next to her. "Stay with me?" She asked him, snuggling her head into his chest.

Juice thought about it a minute. They had shit they needed to work out, a lot to talk about, but, could it really hurt to stay one night when it felt so right? He pulled his shirt and jeans off, and got comfortable, putting his arm around her and pulling her into his chest, and for the first time in weeks, he slept great.

**SOASOASOA**

The next morning Lacey woke up with a pounding headache. She looked next to her, but the bed was empty and she figured that she must have dreamt that he stayed the night with her. After her behavior, she wouldn't have blamed him for staying far away from her. Plus, she reminded herself, she was still pissed that she saw him with that girl at the clubhouse.

She debated trying to go back to sleep, but her bedroom door opened, and Juice came in with some aspirin and a glass of water for her. "Thought you might be hurting." He said as she took the medicine eagerly, drinking half the water.

"You thought right." She told him with a smile, before lying back down; doing her best to remind herself she was mad at him.

"Your brother and I talked last night." Juice told her, shoving his hands in his pockets. "He uh, he said he wasn't going to stand between us anymore."

Lacey's heart leapt at Juice's information, it was what she wanted from the first time Juice told her awful jokes. Then the image of the skank kissing him jumped into her mind and she frowned."There is no us." She reminded him viciously.

"Yeah, because I'm beneath you, right?" He spat back, remembering the sting of her words from last night.

"After I see you with some whore's tongue down your throat, the day after I almost slept with you, yeah I'd say that's an accurate assessment." She told him, sitting up and glaring.

"That was just… I mean we said we were just going to be friends, and your brother was watching me… I just needed…"

"To what? Now that Opie's not standing in our way, who is now? If my Dad gets suspicious are you gonna grab another sweet butt to prove yourself to him?"

"No! It's not going to be like that anymore. Shit, I just want to be with you Lacey! It's all I've wanted since you walked through Gemma's front door. I'm sorry about that girl, but it won't happen again." He promised her, pacing back and forth in front of her. Finally he flopped on the bed next to her and gave her his best pathetic look. "Give me another shot?" He asked her.

"Promise it will never happen again?" She asked him, leaning her head against his in reflex.

"I promise." He told her confidently, his heart leaping as she laid her throbbing head in his lap.

"Never?" She whispered, biting her bottom lip and looking up at him.

"Never." He told her softly. He leaned down, his lips meeting hers, both of them forgetting to breathe.

Lacey pulled away from him, looking up through heavy lids. "We should tell my Dad first." She reminded him.

"Yeah." He said sadly, wanting to stay in bed with her all day. "I'll tell him today."

"Yeah?" She asked him excitedly.

"Yeah, when I get to the clubhouse I'll ask him." He promised her.

"Do you want me to go with you?" She asked him.

Yes, he thought, but answered "No, I should do it myself. Plus if he doesn't take it well, I'd hate for you to watch your Dad whip my ass." He joked, though he was being completely honest.

"So does this mean I don't need a babysitter today?" She asked hopefully.

"Jax is on his way over here, sorry babe." Juice told her, kissing the top of her head, and getting up, walking into the living room.

"Jaaaaaaaax." She whined, following him. "He still calls me kid and gives me noogies. Why don't you just go to work with me?" She asked.

"I've got club shit to do, and I need to talk to your Dad remember?" He told her.

She stuck her bottom lip out and pouted, and Juice laughed. "That look won't work on me." He told her.

"What about this look?" She asked him, pulling off her shirt, tossing it behind her. She looked up at him seductively, running her hand down his chest.

"yeah… that one works on me." He said excitedly, before Jax barged in the door.

"Whoa!" Jax said, his eyes widening in surprise. "I'm just gonna… wait outside." He said through snickers, Lacey and Juice both still standing in shock.

"I'm gonna go get ready for work." She told him, her face flushed in embarrassment. Juice grabbed her, kissing her quickly, before leaving for the clubhouse.

Jax walked into Lacey's apartment and flopped himself down on the couch until Lacey finally emerged, looking somewhat human. "Hey kid," He said grinning. "Heard all about your peep show last night. Giving Juice an encore?"

Lacey groaned and stared at him. "Any chance you could just forget about that?"

"Nope."

**SOASOASOA**

Juice got to the clubhouse before Piney and decided to get on his computer and check the douche bag tracker and jumped up in surprise. Not only had he used his credit card, but he was in Lodi. "We gotta go!" Juice yelled as Piney and Opie walked in the clubhouse. "He's in Lodi, we gotta go now!"

The Sons flew down the highway, making it to the Lodi Roadway Inn in record time. They made their way into the reception area prepared to bribe or kill anyone that stood between them and the douche bag, but stopped dead in their tracks when the teenage boy working the desk looked up at them asking, "Are one of you Piney Winston?"

The Sons looked at each other before Piney stepped forward. "I am."

"This was left for you by a guest that checked out a few hours ago, he said you'd be by." The boy told him, handing him a brown box with Father of the Bride scrawled on the top.

"So the guy that left this, real creepy fucker, about yay tall…" Tig asked the boy while Piney stared at the box, crushing the ends he was holding it so tightly. "He's gone?"

"Yeah, he checked out like three hours ago, looked like he was in a hurry." The clerk told him. "So listen, if I wanted to join the Sons of Anarchy…"

"Get a bike and a record… and some pubes." Tig said, following the Sons out the door.

Piney finally ripped the package open, not able to think about what was in it any longer. Inside was a note, a picture of Lacey and the douche bag on what was supposed to be their wedding day, a terrified smile plastered on Lacey's face, and on the bottom of the package was the wedding dress she'd unceremoniously thrown in the dumpster outside of the SAMTAC clubhouse.

Piney ripped the note open, his blood pressure rising as he read it.

'_Nothing will stand between my lovely bride and I'_

"This is turning into some creepy Criminal Minds shit." Tig mused while Opie ripped apart everything in the box, throwing the pieces in the trash can.

"He's fucking with us." Juice said angrily, kicking over a sign in front of the door.

**SOASOASOA**

Lacey finished the house she was staging early, wondering if Juice had talked to her Dad yet. She stopped by the office to drop off the keys and talk to her boss, Jax choosing to stay outside on his bike and smoke a cigarette. After chatting with Karen for a few minutes, Lacey started to leave when the receptionist stopped her. "Some guy dropped this off for you." She told her, handing her a small box. Lacey glanced outside to see Jax still enjoying his cigarette and opened the box.

Inside was a gold wedding band. The same wedding band Scott had shown her when he'd told her it was time for them to get married. She began shaking as she read the folded piece of paper in the box.

'_For when we are together again'_

Lacey felt her chest constricting and she willed herself to not break down in front of her coworkers. She shoved the box into her purse, walking out to her car to follow Jax to her apartment.

The entire drive to the clubhouse, Lacey debated on if she should show the Sons the package. She didn't want them to worry about her, and having a patch shadow her every where she went was bad enough, she didn't want to be locked away in the clubhouse or at Opie's while they went on a manhunt, that would be as bad as being back at Scott's.

Once they got back to her apartment Jax told her the guys were in Lodi, tracking Scott and she made her decision, if they got him, there would be no need for them to know about the ring, and if, god forbid, they didn't she didn't want to worry them even more. Either way, she wasn't going to tell them, and she shoved the box into a drawer, where it could be out of sight, out of mind, planning on tossing it in a dumpster or burning it as soon as she got a second alone.

**SOASOASOA**

After getting back to the clubhouse, Clay sat down with the rest of the Sons. "We can't just keep running around the state looking for this fucker, he's always one step ahead of us. We'll keep a patch on Lacey and we wait for this douche bag to slip up." Clay told them, everyone nodding in agreement. "Until then, we gotta keep our run schedule going, starting with the run to Nevada tomorrow. Juice, Jax, Opie, Chibs, Tig, Bobby, Happy and I. That'll leave Piney, Koz and the prospects with her till we get back." Clay told them all.

"I'll stay with her tonight." Juice offered, glancing over at Piney.

"Nah, it's alright, I'll just stay with her, at least until after the run, I don't have much else to do." Piney said.

"Well I could stay with her tonight. I know you're probably exhausted. I mean, I already live there... in my own apartment obviously, but same building... you know.

"Since when are you worried about my sleep?" Piney asked him, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

Juice took a deep breath, looking at Opie for backup but only getting snickers and rolled eyes. "I uh… I wanted to talk to you about… my intentions."

"Your intentions?" Piney asked him. "I hope you're talking about with my son?"

"No uh, sir… with your daughter." Juice finally stammered out.

Piney looked over at Opie, who was laughing his ass off with Clay and Chibs, watching Juice. "And what intentions do you have?" He asked Juice, crossing his arms giving Juice a deathly stare.

"Um… well, uh… shit." Juice said, thinking of the best way to word it. "I like her. And uh, she likes me, and Opie said it was OK if we were you know together."

"Oh Opie did, did he?" Piney said, shooting his son a look.

"Both of them are fucking snitches." Opie muttered to Clay and Chibs, glaring at Juice.

"Do you make her happy?" Piney asked Juice.

"Yes sir."

"Can you protect her?"

"Yes sir."

"With your life?"

"Yes sir." Juice told him confidently.

"Well as long as that stays true, I guess I'll deal with your… intentions." Piney finally growled. "But if any of that shit changes," Piney said, pulling his pistol out of his cut and sitting it on the table, the barrel pointed towards Juice. "We know how to hide bodies around here, and I doubt you will be missed."

"Understood." Juice said happily. "So… I'm just gonna go… umm… tell Lacey you're cool with us."

"I am not cool with anything, I am dealing with it." Piney corrected him.

"Right." Juice said with a grin before running out of the clubhouse.

"I need a lot more tequila." Piney grumbled, finishing off his bottle.

**A/N- PLEASE REVIEW AND INSPIRE ME TO GET THE NEXT CHAPTER FINISHED UP, IT'S GOING TO BE A DRAMA FILLED ONE!**


	11. Chapter 11

Three weeks had gone by with no douche bag sightings, and it was putting everyone, especially Juice, on edge. He'd finally been able to be with her, the way he wanted, and he'd be damned if this piece of crap was going to do anything to separate Lacey from him.

Juice woke up with Lacey in his arms, her hair covering her face. He smiled down at her reliving the night before. Between work for the club and runs, last night had been the night they had finally consummated their relationship, it was slightly awkward at first, when he realized she was a virgin, but after her assuring him it was what she wanted, it had been perfect. He smiled, thinking about kissing her soft skin, her lips grazing his chest as her nails dug into his back, the way she'd whispered his name, the way she'd felt around him. It was enough to make him want to wake her up and go for another round

He looked at the clock by the bed and carefully got out of bed, wanting to let Lacey sleep a few more minutes, getting dressed and went into the kitchen to make coffee. He looked into the living room, narrowing his eyes when he saw a disc sitting on the coffee table, a disc he knew he didn't leave there.

He picked it up, reading the sticky note on the front of the case.

'_Just remember, I taught her everything she knows'_

Juice's blood ran cold as he pulled his gun went through the apartment, clearing every possible nook and cranny that the douche bag could be hiding. After he was satisfied that he wasn't there, he opened the cd case, putting it into his computer, and taking it on the back porch where he could make sure Lacey wouldn't hear whatever was on it.

"_Please… I don't want to do this." An 18 year old Lacey pleaded while sitting on the edge of a bed clad only in lingerie, her eyes full of tears. Her arms and legs were dotted with bruises and she was chewing her bottom lip so hard, it looked like she might bite clean through it. _

"_You have to learn how to please your husband sweetie… It's in the bible." Scott said from off camera before walking on, sitting next to her and rubbing her back. "Just relax, and do just like the girl in the movie." He told her, kissing her neck gently. "I promised you I wouldn't have sex with you until our wedding night, and I meant it, but I need release in the mean time."_

_Lacey jerked away from him, tears spilling down her face as she begged and screamed, "No, I don't want to be your wife, I don't want to do this! Release yourself!" Scott grabbed her by her face pulling it close to his. _

"_You'll do what I tell you to, I feed you, I clothe you, I keep you safe, and you will obey me!" Scott screamed in her face. Judging by the glazed look in her eyes, this wasn't the first time he'd lost control with her. Scott backhanded her, Lacey's whole body jerking from the attack, and then threw her on the floor, yanking her onto her knees and holding her face with one hand while unzipping his pants with the other. "Now, just like the movie, sweetheart." He said in a deathly calm voice, ignoring Lacey's hysterical sobbing. _

Juice had seen enough, and pulled the DVD out of his laptop, stomping it until he was satisfied that the shards of DVD would never be able to be seen again, before sweeping it off the balcony, sending it raining down on the parking lot below. He stormed into the apartment, taking a few deep breaths before going in the bedroom, and shaking Lacey gently awake. "Baby, you gotta get up." He whispered. When she opened her eyes and looked up at him with a sleepy smile, he smiled in spite of the anger inside him. "We gotta get up to the clubhouse, get dressed." He told her as gently as he could, though all he wanted to do was throw her over his shoulder and carry up there right then.

"Clubhouse?" She said groggily, getting out of the bed slowly and pulling on her clothes from the night before. "I have to go to work in a couple hours." She reminded him. "Let me go run over to my place and get some clean stuff to put on."

"No, we don't have time for that, and call in sick to work today, OK?" He pleaded with her, grabbing her hand as soon as she had her jeans buttoned, pulling her out of the apartment.

She stopped and stared at him. "What's wrong? What's going on?" She asked him, her face marred with fear.

"It's…" He started, not sure what to tell her, the douche bag had been in the apartment with them, and he hadn't even known it. How did he tell her something like that? "I think the douche bag might be in Charming, I need to talk to the club." He decided on. It wasn't the complete truth, but it wasn't a lie either.

"Oh." Lacey said quietly, and though her face gave no indication of fear, her trembling hand in his suggested otherwise. She followed him to his bike, and they rode up to the clubhouse, each imagining terrible things in their heads.

As soon as they got into the clubhouse, Juice grabbed Miles and Phil. "Stay with her, I don't care what anyone else has you doing, you have eyes on her at all times, got it?" He told them, no trace of the light hearted tone he usually took with them in his voice. Both prospects nodded, flanking Lacey and sitting on either side of her in a booth she had taken up residence in.

Juice went to Clay, who was still drinking his morning coffee, telling him they needed to meet. "Alright, I'll get the guys in here in a minute." Clay told him, taking another sip of his coffee.

"No, not in a minute. Now." Juice told him, staring Clay down.

Clay's eyebrows knitted together in confusion. The Retard might have been a lot of things, but he had never told his President what to do before. "Alright, this better be worth it." Clay said. "Anyone with a patch in the chapel!" Clay called. Tig went outside to round up the few that had started working, and Kozik went down the dorm room hallway, banging on them to wake up the ones that were still sleeping off the drinks from the previous night.

Once everyone was in the clubhouse, they walked into the Chapel, stopping dead in their tracks when they saw the table. In front of every chair, save Juice's, there was a manila envelope with their names on it, in the exact places they sat. "What the fuck is this?" Clay asked Juice, who was so close to exploding from anger, he was shaking.

"I'm not positive, but I've got an idea." He told him. The club went into the Chapel, opening their envelopes and sitting down, with identical faces of rage.

They all had a picture of them with Lacey during one of their shifts shadowing her. Jax sleeping on her couch, Lacey and Clay talking outside of Teller-Morrow, Opie and Lacey playing with Kenny and Ellie on the playground, Chibs smoking a cigarette outside while Lacey was in the store. When Piney opened his, he immediately dropped it face down on the table, taking a joint out of his shirt pocket and lighting it up. Clay looked through the pictures, passing them around, and picked up Piney's dropping it back down on the table in the same manner Piney did. "I didn't need to see that shit… ever." Clay said, rubbing his temples.

After looking through the rest of the pictures, Juice finally picked up Piney's. It was a picture of Juice and Lacey in Juice's bedroom in the middle of their first night of sex. Juice was kissing Lacey's neck, and she had her head thrown back, her eyes closed, with a small smile on her lips. Juice had seen enough bullshit, and punched the wall, and would have continued his assault on it, had Chibs not pulled him away and sat him down. After the chaos settled down, Clay stared at the club members, who were looking at him expectantly.

"How in the hell, did this fucker get into _our_ clubhouse and how in the hell did he get close enough to all of us to get these pictures?" Clay asked them.

"All of the pictures are us not paying attention, letting our guard down." Jax pointed out. "He wants us to know he knows our weaknesses."

"And he wanted to permanently scar me." Piney said gruffly.

"Last night was the first time…" Juice tried to explain. "That's not helping is it?" He asked Piney.

"No." Piney told him. "Do you know how much Patron you're going to have to buy me to get that image out of my head?"

Juice looked over at the picture again, and something dawned on him. "That's not taken from a window, that's from the bedroom door." He said, even angrier with himself.

"You let that fucker get into the apartment with you and you didn't notice?" Jax asked him, raising his voice.

"So did you!" Juice reminded him. "At least I was in the same room with her. Chibs left her alone in a store, and Koz was so busy chatting up the receptionist at her work she wasn't even in the fucking frame she'd gotten so far away!"

"Hey, if something happened I would've noticed, he could have shot you in the fucking back before you knew anything was up!" Kozik defended himself.

"All of you are fucking worthless, I trust my daughter with you and you let this shit happen!" Piney yelled across the table. The Sons started arguing amongst themselves, each one blaming the other for their mistakes. Finally Opie stood up and bellowed "ENOUGH!" The Sons stared at their normally quiet brother, and he continued, "This is what he wants! He wants us to be so busy tearing each other apart we forget about the most important thing! He is in Charming, he's close enough to grab her, so why hasn't he?"

The Sons sat in silence, pondering that question when Tig realized something. "Why didn't Juice get a picture?"

"Oh I got a home delivery." Juice told him. "DVD with director's commentary."

"Of what?" Piney asked him.

"You don't want to know. Trust me." Juice warned him.

"I just had to come to terms with the fact that the retard is fucking my daughter, trust me, it can't get worse." Piney argued.

"Yes… it can." Juice corrected.

"Just tell us!" Opie yelled at him, tired of watching their back and forth.

"It was him and her, and he was teaching her how to…. Give him release." Juice spat out, feeling the bile come up his throat as he thought about it. "Looked like it was done 5 or 6 years ago."

"Son of a bitch!" Piney yelled, throwing an ashtray at the wall.

"I think we need to talk to Lacey about this shit, she knows this guy better than any of us, maybe she knows why he's fucking with us." Juice reasoned.

"No, we can't tell her about this, it'll kill her, she's fragile enough as it is." Piney said.

Juice laughed humorlessly before looking Piney in the eye. "That's the problem she has with you man, she's not some doll that's just gonna break if you drop her. She's tougher than you think and keeping her in the dark with this shit is what's gonna kill her."

Piney stared at him, narrowing his eyes at the asshole who dared tell him how to handle his daughter. "So you don't think seeing all this shit will bother her at all?"

"Of course it will, but she can handle it. What she can't handle is all the secrecy; she can't handle not knowing what's going on when it affects her." Juice told him. Normally, he wouldn't dare go toe to toe with Piney, even before Lacey came into the picture. Today, he was so angry, and scared for Lacey he would punch Piney in the face if he thought it would help her.

Piney looked at Clay for guidance and Clay sighed, sitting back in his chair. "He's got a point Piney, if anyone knows what this sneaky bastard is thinking, it would be her, and she does have a right to know just how dangerous this guy has become."

"Fine." Piney grumbled. "Let's talk to her then."

Tig went out into the clubhouse and brought Lacey into the chapel. Juice stood up, giving her his seat, putting his hands on her shoulders as she looked between the men, confused. Clay passed her the pictures to her telling her they were left in the chapel, and she looked through them slowly, her heart feeling like it was in a vice. "I…" She began her voice breaking as she looked at the men. "I'm so sorry." She told them, wiping her face with her hands, hoping no traitorous tears fell.

The Sons looked at each other in confusion, before Opie told her. "You don't have anything to be sorry about, we're not mad."

"At you." Piney added, well aware that he was in fact very mad at the douche bag.

"We wanted to know if you have any idea why he's doing this. If he got this close so many times, why didn't he try to just snatch you?" Jax asked her.

Lacey chewed her bottom lip, comforted by the feeling of Juice running hand through her hair, the other firmly holding her shoulder. "He used to say that fear is the most powerful emotion, and that as scared as I was being with him, being away from him would be ten times worse. He said it would be so bad, that I would beg to go back with him." She looked down at the table, tracing the wood grain with her finger. "When I would tell him that my Dad would find me, he told me if he other did, he'd make him wish he didn't, that when he was through with him, he'd be handing back with a bow on top."

"Well he was fucking wrong." Piney told her.

"So we've got psychological warfare on our hands? I can work with that." Happy said. If this fucker wanted to try to scare them, he'd show him what true fear was.

"He thinks he's smarter than us… than me. I think he also wants me to see that. No matter what you do, he'll always be one step ahead." Lacey said.

"I'm tearing apart every inch of this damn town until I find him." Opie said matter-of-factly, staring at the table.

"I'll call Tacoma and Indian Hills, get them down here to help." Clay told him. "While we're doing it, you get her out of town." He said, pointing at Juice.

"What if we're followed?" Juice asked him.

"I didn't get this old being stupid. We set up some decoys, confuse the bastard so much he doesn't know which way is up. After we're sure none of the decoys are followed, we get her ass out of town, and we go through this place with a fine tooth comb, I'm tired of this guy being a pain in our collective asses. He thinks he can threaten someone we love and get away with it? He's about to get a wake up call."

**A/N- PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW, I READ EVERY SINGLE ONE AND REALLY APPRECIATE ANY FEEDBACK I GET TO HELP ME SHAPE THE STORY. **


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N- THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO REVIEWS AND READS THIS STORY, REVIEWS ARE MY INSPIRATION!**

Lacey paced nervously across the clubhouse floor, hoping Clay's plan would work. Tara, Gemma and Celia, who had come down with the Tacoma charter, were all dressed alike in black SAMCRO hoodies and black loose fitting yoga pants. The idea was for the Sons to drive all the girls through different routes, before finally meeting up at the old, burnt down Bluebird warehouse. Once they were sure they weren't followed, Juice and Lacey would head to San Francisco and the Sons would find the douche bag wherever he was hiding.

"You ready?" Juice asked her, and she jumped as her thoughts were disrupted.

"I guess so." She said looking at the women waiting for their cues. "What if he hurts someone else?" She asked Juice.

"Hey." He told her, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her forehead. "Nothing is going to happen to them; the guys won't let it happen." He pulled her closer, kissing her deeply. "And I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

She smiled up at him reaching up and kissing him again. "Hey! Knock that shit off!" Opie yelled at them, "It's time to go."

The women paired of, Tara and Juice, Opie and Celia, Gemma and Tig, and Lacey and Kozik. They headed out to different cars and all took their assigned routes. Lacey stared in the rearview mirror while Koz drove, watching every set of headlights behind them to see if they were following.

"Chill out Lace, you're making me nervous." Kozik joked.

"How can you not be nervous? If he follows us…"

"If he follows us, I'll gut him like a fish, and I'll be the big hero!" Kozik joked. Lacey gave him a serious look and he frowned. "Listen Lace, you want some thought provoking speech, that's all Op and Jax. You wanna make out and be told that everything is gonna be ok, that's on Juice, though I wouldn't say no to the making out part. I deal with shit but finding it and beating it the hell out of it until it goes away."

"That's healthy." She told him sarcastically.

"It's worked for the last 32 years." He told her with a grin.

They finally made it off the road and to the burnt remnants of the Son's old gun assembly warehouse. They waited with Tara, Juice, Opie and Celia for a couple of tense minutes, all of them letting out a sigh of relief when Tig and Gemma pulled up. "Hey Tig, this bring back old memories of lost love?" Juice asked Tig, who flipped him off in return.

"Do I even want to know?" Lacey asked Opie, who shook his head fiercely.

"Alright, coast is clear, time to switch off and head back." Opie told the groups, before wrapping his sister in a tight hug, not ready to send her away. "Be careful." Opie told her, before looking at Juice. "You better take care of her." Opie told him seriously. Juice nodded quickly, taking Lacey's hand and getting her into the car, heading towards San Francisco.

Lacey fell asleep almost immediately after they got on the highway, leaving Juice alone with his thoughts. He was happy that he and Lacey had a chance to be alone, away from the prying eyes in Charming, but to say the circumstances were shitty was putting it mildly. He smiled as he glanced over at her, happy to see her sleeping peacefully, then went back to watching the road, and more importantly, watching the cars behind him. The drive to San Francisco would normally only take about 2 hours, but with Juice's route that included mostly back roads and some back tracking, it was going to take closer to four.

Juice drove in silence for a few hours, until Lacey woke up, leaning over and kissing his cheek. "We're almost there." He told her, ready to get in bed and get some sleep himself.

"I didn't mean to fall asleep; you should've woken me up." She told him.

"I was just glad you got some sleep, I know you didn't last night." He told her. He had eventually fallen into a fitful sleep, but had noticed that she hadn't joined him.

"I couldn't turn my brain off." She admitted to him.

"Well tonight, there's nothing to worry about. It's just going to be you and I… and a city full of people." He told her.

"How long are we going to stay?" She asked him.

"I'm not sure yet. Couple of days at least. Afraid you'll get sick of me?" He asked her with a grin.

"Never." She told him earnestly. "I kind of wish we could stay longer." She admitted.

"Well, maybe we can." He told her hopefully. "I'm sure they could handle the club without me for a week."

"You think?" She asked him, getting excited at the thought of a week with no worries, no brother or Dad watching her every move, and no Scott.

"Yeah." He told her as they pulled into the hotel parking lot. He was excited about the thought of spending a week with her, but even more excited that she wanted to spend a week with him. After checking in, he led her to their room, pausing to unlock the door. He swept her off her feet, carrying her in and kissing her before laying her on the bed, kicking the door closed behind him. "You're supposed to carry a bride over the threshold, not a girlfriend." She reminded him with a giggle.

"Maybe I'm just practicing." He said with a goofy grin, waggling his eyebrows at her. "So you think you're my girl huh?"

"If that's what you think." Lacey said softly, looking up at him and offering him a small smile. When Juice stood there in silence, grinning like a fool, she asked, "is that what you think?"

"I think you've been my girl since the day I met you."

**SOASOASOA**

By the time the two had woken up, gotten dressed and Juice had checked in with the Sons, it was almost noon. "What do you want to do today?" He asked her, hoping to keep her mind of the disappointment that the Sons first night of searching had come up empty.

Her stomach growled in answer and she grinned sheepishly. "Eat?" She suggested.

"Sounds good."

The two drove to the downtown area, parking and walking through the streets, settling on a small café. They enjoyed lunch on the patio, and Lacey reveled in the normalcy of it all. Juice had left his cut in the hotel room, and the two weren't anyone special to anyone, just another couple of lovebirds having lunch downtown. It was blissful.

After lunch, they walked hand in hand around downtown, taking time to look through various stores, and Lacey having to insist that Juice not buy her things just because she commented on them. They ended up catching a movie, then having dinner, not heading back to the car until after dark. Juice checked in with the Son's again, they were having no luck, and running out of places to look. Lacey's face fell when Juice reported the news. "I don't think this will ever be over." She confessed to him. "I'll have to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder."

"Don't say that, he's gonna slip up soon, and we'll get him." Juice promised her. "Then we can just have a normal boring life together."

Lacey raised her eyebrows. "I doubt we'll ever be boring."

Juice chuckled. "Well… as boring as we can be." He told her, throwing an arm around her shoulder.

"Mmmm, that sounds nice." Lacey hummed, leaning her head on his chest.

As they got close to the parking lot, Lacey stopped in her tracks, looking at a shadowy figure leaning against their car. Juice knew immediately who it was and charged towards the figure, coming face to face with Scott Callahan He knew he should just pull his gun and end it right there, but his rage got the best of him and he attacked him. Juice tackled him to the ground, only to have Scott get a cheap shot to Juice's face, pushing Juice off of him and taking off running. Juice ran after him, wishing he had shot him when he had the chance, now they were on a crowded street, if Juice tried to take a shot, someone would call the cops.

Juice swore when Scott ran through a crowd of people exiting the movie theatre and he lost sight of him. Juice pushed through the crowd, ignoring the protests of the people he was mowing down, looking frantically for a sign of Scott. He finally spotted him across the street.

Scott ran towards a cab dropping off its passengers and hopped in the backseat. Juice knew he had to take a shot, and while running towards the cab, fired off a shot, missing Scott completely. Juice ran for the cab as it took off, and Scott hung a gun out the window and fired a shot, grazing Juice's shoulder. He hit the ground, and Lacey was next to him a minute later, holding her hand to Juice's wound, trying to will the bleeding to stop.

Juice pulled himself off the ground, wishing he could go back in time and shoot the fucker before he knocked the gun out of his hand. "It's fine Lacey. We can take care of it back at the hotel. We need to get out of here before the cops get here. I gotta call the guys too." Lacey nodded, blinking back the tears in her eyes. She found a jacket in the trunk of her car to control the bleeding and drove the two back to their hotel.

After getting his wound clean and bandaged, he called the Sons, and the two headed back to Charming, a tense feeling hanging between the two. Juice felt that he let Lacey down, and was beating himself up about it, meanwhile Lacey was frozen with fear at seeing Scott again, and she wanted desperately for Juice to comfort her, but he was so wrapped up in his own shit to realize it.

**SOASOASOA**

While the Sons met, trying to discuss what their next move would be, Lacey sat outside smoking a cigarette under the watchful eye of the prospects until Juice finally came out. He sat next to her, and pulled her towards him, holding her so tightly; it was if she might float away without him. "How did he find us?" Juice asked himself, still trying to work it out in his head.

Lacey sat thoughtfully, pulling the pendant on her necklace up and down its chain. "I don't know… I mean, you got the chip out of my neck, right?" She asked him.

Juice was so deep in thought her question barely registered as he answered, "Yeah… yeah I did." He confirmed, the lie not even feeling like a lie anymore. He looked at her, so disappointed in himself he couldn't meet her eyes, and watched her play with her necklace, when he had an idea. "Where did you say you got that necklace?"

"My Dad… Scott gave it back to me eventually." She reminded him, a little annoyed that he didn't remember.

Juice reached for the necklace, yanking it off her neck, ignoring her cry of pain, annoyance and protest. He pulled out his switchblade, the same one Lacey used on her neck, and pulled the gem out of the setting on the pendant, kicking himself for not thinking of it sooner. There, between the metal and the gem was a small chip, just like the ones used in a GPS. "It wasn't in your neck; it was in your necklace." He told her, before immediately wishing he hadn't.

"What do you mean it wasn't in my neck? You got it out of my neck, you showed it to me." She reminded him, staring at the offending jewelry, trying her best to make sense of the new development.

"I… I faked it." He finally admitted. "You were bleeding and I thought you might end up killing yourself, so I faked it."

"You what?" Lacey asked him, jumping up and staring at him.

"You wouldn't listen to me! You wouldn't believe me! You had already sliced your damn neck open, and if I told you there was nothing in there you wouldn't have believed me!" Juice insisted, defending his actions.

"How could you lie to me?" She asked in a small voice. She would expect Opie or her Dad to do something like that, but she thought Juice had always been honest with her. She kept her eyes on the necklace, still trying to wrap her head around it.

"I was trying to protect you." He told her. "It doesn't matter right now. Right now, I need to get rid of this thing."

"No!" She yelled, surprising him. "I want to be the one to destroy it. I… I don't want any help from you right now." She told him, taking the necklace from him and going into the clubhouse. Juice put his head in his hands, blowing out a breath. He had meant to take that little lie to his grave, and now she thought he was no better than Opie and Piney about being honest with her, hell, she might have thought he was worse.

**A/N- AS ALWAYS, PLEASE REVIEW!**


	13. Chapter 13

Lacey paced around her apartment, glancing at Kozik, who was snoring on the couch. She couldn't sleep; she couldn't think straight, all she could think about was the douche bag, and her fight with Juice. She knew he was just trying to help, but she still felt so foolish that he had to lie to her to get her to stop her craziness. She wished she had just believed him, now in the back of his head, he'd always remember that she cut her neck open in her dorm room when they barely even knew each other's names.

She opened the front door, and Kozik lifted his head up. "Where are you going?" He asked her groggily.

"I'm just going to grab my cigarettes." She told him. "I'll be right back."

Kozik muttered something incomprehensible, and laid his head back down, quickly falling back to sleep.

Lacey walked to her car and was reaching into the console when she heard someone chuckling quietly behind her. She whipped around to see Scott standing in front of her. "You can't run from me forever." He hissed, looking around for any sign of a Son.

"I know." Lacey told him sadly. Scott grabbed her arm, yanking her towards him, holding her against his chest as he breathed in her smell, almost crushing her in his arms. He ran his hands down her body, feeling for any weapon or her phone. Satisfied that she wasn't hiding anything, he leaned down, his lips touching her ear.

"I would kill everyone that stood in my way to get you." He whispered as a warning.

"I know." Lacey said, knowing this moment was inevitable. She was waiting for it since the day she'd been rescued.

Scott scooped her up, and Lacey had a moment of panic, letting out a small scream before he clamped a hand over her mouth, throwing her in the backseat of a plain white car, getting in the driver's seat and flying out of the parking lot, heading for the freeway.

Lacey sat next to him in stunned silence, her heart feeling as if it had forgotten to beat. She debated trying to open the car door, hoping she could roll out, but quickly found out that Scott had the child locks on, and the only way out was if someone outside of the door opened it. "You're not leaving again." He told her. "I won't lose you again." He repeated to himself.

**SOASOASOA**

Juice had been sitting in his apartment, trying to muster up the balls to go talk to Lacey when he heard the scream. It was so quick, if he hadn't been awake, he wouldn't have noticed it. He ran out his door, seeing a car driving like a bat out of hell down the street, and ran to Lacey's door. He threw the unlocked door open, and saw Kozik waking up to the intrusion, but no Lacey. "Where is she?" He yelled at Koz, checking every area of the apartment. Kozik jumped up, looking around frantically.

"She was here man, when I went to bed she was in her room." He told his brother.

"He got her!" Juice screamed in Kozik's face. Kozik immediately pulled out his phone, calling Clay, while Juice got on his bike, hoping like hell he could find her.

**SOASOASOA**

Lacey stared at Scott, who had been doing nothing but muttering to himself for the past hour as they drove. Finally he pulled into a small motel off the highway. Glancing inside at the young woman he looked at Lacey. "If you try to leave, I will kill her." He promised her, before rushing inside and getting a room. Lacey racked her brain, trying to think of why Scott would stop so soon after finally getting her, it didn't make sense, it wasn't what she was expecting, and it scared the hell out of her. "Why would we stop when we are barely through Lodi? And why at the Roadside Inn right off I-95?" She asked herself. It didn't make sense that he would take such a risk.

After being pulled from the car into the hotel room, Lacey stood nervously in the room, watching Scott pace back and forth. He was blocking her path to the door, and she was fairly positive that he was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. "Why did we stop?" She asked him finally, the idea of not knowing scaring her more than knowing.

"They'll take you away, again. They'll take you and I cannot lose you again, Rebecca. I won't lose you again."

Lacey's eyes widened. Scott was sure that Lacey was the reincarnation of his dead wife, but he very rarely slipped into a state where he thought she _was_ Rebecca.

Scott opened his small overnight bag, pulling out a large butcher knife. "We can't be together in this life, but we can be together in the next." He muttered, mostly to himself.

"Oh shit…" Lacey murmured under her breath. "Scott… Scott." She tried to get his attention. "SCOTT!" She yelled, startling him. "I'm sorry about Rebecca. I am sorry she's gone, but I am not her." Lacey told him.

"Stop… stop lying to me! Why are you doing this? I love you!"Scott yelled, grabbing her by her upper arms, shaking her. She could feel the point of the knife brush against her cheek, and her survival instincts kicked in.

"Scott… wait." Lacey said gently. "We can't do it now… we never… we didn't ever… consummate our marriage." The offending words brought the bile up in her throat.

"You don't care; you cheated on me… with that biker." He spat out, but his face softened at her proposal.

"I didn't think you were ever coming back, I was afraid…" She lied. "He doesn't mean anything to me, you're who I want." The words made her ill, but this was survival.

**SOASOASOA**

Juice had eyes on the car he'd seen pulling out of the parking lot, but he had to stay far enough back he wouldn't be detected. If he got too close, the douche bag might kill Lacey. He swore when he realized he'd lost the car in a patch of traffic, and was unable to find it. He finally pulled over to the side of the road, not surprised when Kozik was just behind him. "I couldn't get a hold of Clay." Kozik told him. "I'm so sorry man…" Koz tried to apologize.

"I should bust your head in." Juice told him. "But I'll wait. We need to figure out where he took her." Juice said, racking his brain. "Where would he go? Which way would he go?"

"Once Clay gets my message, he'll put out an APB to all the other chapters, and they'll watch all the major roads. We'll find him." Kozik assured him. "Plus, Lacey's smart, she'll figure out how to get a message to us, or how to get away from him."

"She shouldn't have to do any of that! We were supposed to protect her!" Juice raged, kicking over Kozik's bike.

"I know you're pissed at me, and if you want to hit me, that's fine, but don't kick my fucking bike." Kozik warned him, pulling his bike back up.

"What the hell are we going to do?" Juice asked himself, not really caring if Kozik had an answer.

The two stood in silence, watching the road, when they heard the distinct sound of Harley's racing down the highway. "It's them." Juice said, wondering how the hell they'd gotten there.

"He must've gotten my message. Maybe he has some intel." Kozik suggested getting on his bike. "Let's go."

**SOASOASOA**

Scott thought about Lacey's proposal, still holding her arms in his hands. He had spent years working on her, training her, and to lose her without even getting to lay with her as husband and wife seemed like a waste. He threw her on the bed, putting the knife on the dresser before crawling on top of her while he gripped her arms tightly. "No!" Lacey yelled, getting him to pause for a second. "Not like this… romantic and… beautiful, like we had always planned." She pleaded with him. She ran a hand down his cheek, looking at him with wanting. He smiled at her, and she gently pushed him away, standing up and peeling her shorts off slowly, biting her bottom lip before she smiled at him. He sat up, sitting on the edge of the bed and leading her to stand between his legs. She unbuttoned his shirt seductively, trying not to cringe as he kissed her neck, putting a hand on her firm ass. He moved his hands to pull his shirt off, and Lacey saw her only opportunity.

She reached behind her, grabbing the knife. Scott's eyes widened and he jumped up and grabbed her, yanking her towards him, she put the knife between her and him, and it slid into his chest between two of his ribs. He slouched forward, his entire weight pressing against Lacey, embedding the knife even further into him. Lacey was stuck between Scott and the dresser, finally mustering up the strength to push him backwards, his body bouncing from the bed to the floor. Lacey stood over him, his eyes pleading with her for help and she pulled the knife from his chest, holding it at the ready in case he managed to recover enough to try to go after her. After a few minutes, Scott began to scream. "You stupid bitch! How could you do this to me? How could you?" He howled, Lacey prayed the walls were thick, or that the rooms next to them were empty. She tried to tune out his threats as she pulled her shorts back on and paced the room, trying to think for a minute, to come up with a plan.

After tuning him out wasn't working, she thought of stabbing him again, right in the throat so his hateful words would stop spewing from his mouth, but as much as she wanted to, she couldn't bring herself to do it.

Finally his venom was too much for her, and she clamped her hands over her ears, putting the knife down next to her as she began screaming, doing her best to drown out the offending noises. She sat against the wall, and her screams dissolved to sobs as she realized what she had done. Scott was silent, the pool of blood he was laying in had grown larger, the puddle almost to Lacey's feet.

After a few minutes of wallowing in self pity, the hotel room door flew open, courtesy of Juice's boot, and Juice ran in, picking Lacey up off the floor and holding her on his lap as he sat in the uncomfortable motel room chair, kissing her forehead and holding her against his chest, ignoring the blood being transferred from her shirt to his.

The rest of the Sons filed in the room, Happy and Tig immediately grabbing the douche bag who was still clinging on to life, tossing him unceremoniously in the back of the van.

"Holy shit princess." Piney said, looking around the room.

"Opie did it?" She tried with a sheepish shrug.

**A/N- PLEASE LET ME KNOW HOW YOU LIKED THIS CHAPTER, AND KNOW THAT ALL QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED NEXT CHAPTER (IF I'M FEELING NICE!)**


	14. Chapter 14

The Sons and Lacey went back to the clubhouse, leaving the prospects to clean up the hotel room and to make sure to take care of any witnesses. Juice took a seat next to Lacey, put his arm around her possessively and pulled her towards him. The Sons crowded around their table, handing beers to the couple. "So…" Clay said taking a long swig of his beer. "Went a little off script there didn't ya sweetheart?" He asked Lacey, who rolled her eyes.

"Off script?" Juice asked, looking at Lacey, then at Clay, waiting for an explanation.

"Well… I think we can agree the original plan kind of went to shit." Lacey told him with a small laugh.

"Plan?" Juice asked, wondering if he'd suddenly gone mute and no one could hear him.

"Well, it's over now." Opie said with an exhausted sigh.

"I told you that it would work." Lacey said smugly, sticking her tongue out at her brother.

"Would someone tell me what the hell is going on?" Juice yelled, banging his fist on the table. The Sons looked at him, and Lacey looked at Clay, shocked.

"You didn't tell him?" She asked Clay.

"Didn't exactly have time to… Kozik either." Clay admitted.

"Well, plenty of time now, so tell me." Juice insisted, staring at Lacey.

"I don't suppose there's any way for me to blame this on Opie?" She asked him. Juice shook his head and Lacey took a breath,"Ok… well…"

_Lacey stormed into the clubhouse, clutching her broken necklace and made a beeline to Clay. "Can I talk to you?" She asked him. Seeing the serious expression on her face, Clay motioned to the chapel and the two walked in, Opie and Tig trailing behind him. _

"_I can't talk to Clay alone?" Lacey asked the two stragglers, her annoyance written on her face. _

"_I just want to make sure you're not blaming some shit on me… again." Opie grumbled. _

"_I go where the prez goes." Tig responded. _

"_Yes, because I'm sure he needs protection from me, I am a certified killer." Lacey said sarcastically. _

"_You never know." Tig said with a smirk. _

"_Fine whatever." Lacey said, before dropping the necklace on the table. "He's been tracking me… with this." Opie immediately reached for the necklace, prepared to break it with his bare hands, but Lacey quickly snatched it up again. "I have an idea." She said ominously. _

_After sitting in silence for a second, Tig finally prodded her. "Well, what it is?"_

_Lacey took a breath, seriously considering backing out of the idea altogether. She steeled her nerves and told herself that this would work. "I think… I think we should let him take me." _

"_Have you lost your fucking mind?" Opie yelled immediately. _

"_Hear me out!" She yelled over Opie. Clay put a hand on Opie's shoulder, quieting him, before motioning for Lacey to continue. "I think we should let him take me, but wire me up first. I'll slip away, let him think he caught us in a weak moment, and you guys can wait. I'll talk about where we are and where we're going, and you can catch up so when we stop… you can catch him off guard… finally."_

"_You have lost your mind?" Opie told her. "There's no way… what if he just puts a bullet in you as soon as he sees you? What if he spots us following him and kills you then? There's no way you're putting yourself in that kind of danger." _

"_What other option is there, Opie? He's been five steps ahead of us this whole time! It's only a matter of time before he finds a way to get to me, at least this way you'll be ready for him."_

_Clay sat back in his chair, taking in Lacey's plan. Opie looked at Clay and Tig, his face distorted in anger and horror. "You can't possibly be considering this." He said in disbelief. _

"_She has a point." Clay argued. "I'm tired of this asshole hiding out like a damn rat, and catching us off guard, maybe it's time we put out some bait."_

"_My sister is not bait!" Opie bellowed. _

"_Opie! Please trust me!" Lacey begged him. "It'll be fine. I trust you to get there in time. I need you to trust me." She gave him a pleading look, tears in her eyes from her frustration. _

"_Dad will never agree to this." Opie reminded her. "And neither will Juice."_

_Lacey bit her lip, fidgeting with her hands nervously. "So maybe we don't tell them… until after he takes me."_

_Opie laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, that'll go over real well."_

"_There's no other way, you said it yourself, they wouldn't agree with it. So… you guys explain it when there's not enough time for them to get mad?" Lacey said nervously. She turned to Opie, "Opie… please, I'm ready for this to be over, and I'm ready for him to be gone."_

_Opie sighed, rubbing his forehead. "If shit goes south… what happens?"_

_Lacey looked at him, a steely expression on her face. "I'll do what I have to."_

"_We'll get you a wire tomorrow, tomorrow night we'll put Kozik on you, he's a heavy sleeper, won't even notice you leave." Tig mused. _

"_Tomorrow?" She asked, a little shocked. "That soon?"_

"_No time like the present." Clay told her. "Unless you're having second thoughts?" _

"_No… No." She said straightening up in her chair. "Let's do this."_

Juice sat in shock, his mouth hanging open. "You knew about this?" He asked Piney.

"Not until there was nothing I could do about it." He grumbled back, taking a shot of tequila. "Trust me, I'm not thrilled about the little conspiracy either."

"We would've told you when it set into motion, but you took off like a bat out of hell." Jax told him.

"You should've told me sooner!" Juice insisted, jumping up and glaring at the people in front of him.

"You wouldn't have agreed to it." Lacey told him. "And in case you've forgotten, I'm pissed at you!"

"You're damn right I wouldn't have agreed to it! I don't care how pissed you are, I'm still not going to put you into danger!" Juice ranted, before storming out of the clubhouse.

Lacey rolled her eyes and sighed. "You knew he wasn't going to take this well." Opie told her gently.

"Why are you mad at him? Do I need to kill him?" Piney asked her.

"No, Dad, it's fine. I'll be right back." She said, getting up from the table and going outside, where Juice was pacing and taking deep drags off a joint. He looked up at her, and shook his head, laughing humorlessly.

"How could you not tell me?" He yelled at her.

"I'm sorry Juice! I didn't want you to worry!" She yelled back.

"Well, guess what, I'M WORRIED!" He screamed.

"I don't want to fight with you!"

"I don't want to fight with you either!"

"Then why are we still yelling?" She asked him.

"Because I'm pissed that the woman I love's life was at risk!" Juice admitted to her.

Lacey blinked before asking him in a normal tone, "You love me?"

He stopped pacing and gave her an 'are you kidding me' look. "Of course I love you."

She looked shyly at the ground before looking back up at him. "I love you too." She told him with a small smile.

He grinned in spite of himself, and pulled her into a deep kiss. "Don't ever do anything like that again." He murmured.

"I promise if anyone ever kidnaps me, then I escape, then he stalks me and we can't catch him… I'll let you in on the plan." Lacey said sarcastically.

"Lacey…" He said in an annoyed tone.

"I love you." She reminded him.

"That's not always going to work." He warned her.

"But it'll work for now?" She teased.

"Yeah." He conceded, kissing her again.

Clay, Opie and Piney watched the two kiss and make up and Clay nudged Piney. "You know this means you're going to have half retard grandkids, right?"

Piney glanced over at Opie, answering "Guess we need to start saving up for some helmets."

**A/N- THIS IS THE END OF THIS PART OF THE LACEY/JUICE STORY. THERE WILL BE A SEQUEL IN A MONTH OR SO, AFTER I FINISH UP MY OTHER PROJECTS. I HOPE EVERYONE ENJOYED IT, AND WILL READ THE SEQUEL!**


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